Punch cards
Aaron Konstam
akonstam at sbcglobal.net
Thu Apr 10 15:05:50 UTC 2008
On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 13:21 +0930, Tim wrote:
> Aaron Konstam:
> > Well Tim you may be pushing your luck on being right.
>
> ;-)
>
> > I have heard noting about pushing the digital switch to 2013. As far
> > as I know in the US it is still 2009. Do you have a reference for this
> > assertion you are making.
>
> I first heard about on the radio, but forgot the all-important reference
> to where this announcement came from. A quick Google search gives the
> following information:
>
> "at the Australian Broadcasting Summit, Senator Conroy announced the
> switchover date for Australian free-to-air TV: December 31, 2013."
>
> So I guess finding documentation from that summit, or something from the
> Senator, might do the trick. It's now being called "switchover," so
> that'd be the keyword to look for.
>
> Here, it's been pushed back several times, because they've realised that
> it's just not going to happen as the dates were approached. The
> stations weren't really ready, nor were the general public.
>
> The radio host telling us the story about what will happen, taking
> snippets from a report, was rather shocked by the information he
> imparted:
>
> $37.9 million to be spent on driving the digital switchover
> $6.7 M to be spent on a logo and labelling scheme
> $4.8 M for a digital tracker to assess what people were doing about it
> $8.5 M (? I couldn't take notes fast enough) technical switchover
> projects to evaluation digital TV transmissions in Australia
> $16.6 M digital switchover taskforce
> $0 for advertising and marketing campaigns
> Being over seen by Townsend somebody, who was responsible for the
> British switchover.
>
> He was shocked at the waste and the duplication of what's already exists
> (such as logos and labels), and how frivolous much of this is.
>
> I'm just as shocked. If they're going to spend that much, they may as
> well just heavily subsidise the set top boxes so people can buy them for
> peanuts. We only have a population of about 20 million in Australia,
> many of whom live in the same house (e.g. if there's four to a house,
> that's somewhere around 5 million boxes to get installed).
>
> And you have to wonder why the stations don't promote the boxes more.
> We have the occasional adverts on free-to-air TV saying how much better
> it will be, and saying "best of all, it's all free" (after you've bought
> the hardware). But you'd think they'd be involved more in selling the
> boxes, if they want to really push the switchover into happening.
>
> --
> (This computer runs FC7, my others run FC4, FC5 & FC6, in case that's
> important to the thread.)
>
> Don't s still 02/2009. isend private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
> I read messages from the public lists.
>
Well int the US it is still 2009. The US govenment have sent people up
to 2 $40 coupons so the boxes can be bought for peanuts or $20 whichever
is less.
--
=======================================================================
Wouldn't this be a great world if being insecure and desperate were a
turn-on? -- "Broadcast News"
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net
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