Clearer picture needed on switchover

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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A Consumer watchdog is calling for greater efforts to advise the public about the switchover to digital TV that starts in November.

National Consumer Forum chairman Thami Bolani told Business Times that the three-year process needed to be carefully managed to avoid a severe financial impact on the poor.

Many people are being lured by steep discounts on analogue sets, which could soon be obsolete.

“There are many facets of the digital migration that require government clarity,” he said.

“How will it affect the poor?”

Bolani said that the forum supported the introduction of new technology, which would improve picture quality.

“[But] we feel that it is in the interest of our consumers to get clear messages about how this will be done and the implications.”

He said the forum was concerned about the lack of public awareness of the changes, which were only three months away.

“In our recent radio interviews, it was shocking to learn that almost 99% of the callers had no idea of what digital migration is all about. This simply means that a lot of consumers are likely to misinterpret the massive discounts they get when buying televisions sets,” Bolani said.

He said that consumers who still had analogue TVs at the end of the switchover period in 2011 would have to buy a device to decode the digital signal.

“Hence the forum is requesting the government to provide … a strategic policy document on digital migration and its implications,” he said.

Bolani said the government should conduct consumer awareness programmes and explain what subsidies would be available.

Adrian Boland, Merchandise Executive of Hitech Multimedia and Mass discounters said, “there is a huge cost difference between analogue and digital televisions, hence we still sell a lot of conventional televisions. An example is a conventional 54cm TV will sell for R899, an LCD will sell for R2199”.

Digital TV discussion