Fade to grey. Analogue TV ends in Australia.
As Melbourne, Remote Central and Eastern Australia flick the switch, an era in television comes to an end.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
Analogue television ends forever at 9am in Australia today, ending in a whimper rather than a bang.
The last areas to switch entirely to digital television this morning are the Melbourne metropolitan area and communities in Remote Central and Eastern Australia.
This will end the digital switchover program which began in Mildura in 2010.
Before the switchover began, 47 per cent of households throughout Australia were digital-ready, now it has risen to 99 per cent of households.
Chairman of Freeview, Kim Dalton said: “The introduction of digital free-to-air television has changed the Australian television landscape dramatically.
“In a word, digital television has delivered choice to Australian audiences – more content available across more channels.
“Alongside each of the networks’ main channels, the free-to-air platform now offers dedicated children’s channels, a 24 hour news channel, comprehensive and uninterrupted live coverage of all major sporting codes and events and an expanded range of channels targeted at particular demographics and interests,” he said.
“The free-to-air networks, working through Freeview, have driven the take-up of digital television. Australian audiences have embraced free-to-air digital television and all it has to offer. The take-up of digital, and the transition to it, has been smooth and comprehensive.”
22 Responses
Goodbye analogue. I’ll miss you. Digital looks great and is wonderful as long as there is no weather or power problems. In the last month the power was out so I could watch the first ten minutes or so of the JFK documentary on SBS on my portable B&W analogue TV. Thank you SBS for it.
The reason I bring it up is stormy weather can knock out digital. Floods are associated with storms. Also bushfires have high winds that can knock it out. Not to mention both have power outages. While analogue works. I guess luckily we still have analogue radio. The only competent technology left in an emergency. Let’s hope it has a back-up transmitter just in case it fails or is destroyed somehow. Otherwise there will be nothing.
I can’t believe some regulars here want to go back to pre-digital times with just five ghosting channels! Time to get some perspective, people.
Darren, ABC have just moved the News24 watermark to be consistent & in the same place as other channel watermarks. They also moved ABC3’s & 4Kids’ watermarks too.
the hilarious thing is that the final switch off resulted in ABC24 moving its logo to the actual corner of its 16:9 format.
Hey, memo ABC, 24 was always a freaking digital channel from the get go and the ABV2 analogue service had nothing to do with it!
Idiots.
@Secret Squirrel – Unfortunately MPEG-4 will suffer the same fate as any chance of the Main Channels going HD. As there are many TV’s and STB’s out there in SD only, the same is for TV’s and STB’s in MPEG-4, so many are only the MPEG-2 standard.
I do it for a living and Sky Racing recently moved to MPEG-4 for some of there channels and the call-outs to get new TV’s or an MPEG-4 compliant STB has been overwhelming (in TAB’s, Clubs and Pubs).
It will take a fair bit of time for the public to churn over their TV’s (or STB’s) to the newer models that have both standards before that can happen.
As for the article, phase one over now on to the Digital Channel Re-stack next year.
@Laurie – there is no compression on CD. You are thinking of all rhe formats thast came later, mp3, wma, etc.
@steveany 2.0 – thanks (and welcome back, if temporarily). I too have become thoroughly disenchanted with the behaviour of the commercial networks.
Now that I’ve been pretty much weaned off the cathode ray nipple (thankyou Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy) I get thru most dramas in about 42 mins and don’t have to put up with/ignore inane, irrelevant ads. I still watch some things on SBS/SBS2 because I don’t feel like they’re actively trying to p!ss me off.
I honestly never knew HSV stood for Herald Sun Television until watching the video.
The digital channels such as 7two and GO were really good in the beginning, offering quality alternative programs which the main channel couldnt accommodate (Lost, 24, Vampire Diaries etc). Sadly, they slowly turned into a dumping ground littered with repeats and bizarre programs which I have zero interest in watching (what on earth is Swamp People!?)
Why is it that Channel 7 were the only network to go out of their way to announce that analogue TV was finishing up?
@S. Squirrel esq. – You at your best!
Thanks to the enervating and messy task of trying to find that tiny nugget in one of five or ten buckets, I just don’t watch TV any more, so I no longer comment here.
Still visit TvT from time to time but only Mr. Squirrel could bring my fingers back to the keyboard!
If these networks keep adding stupid shopping channels we will probably never see primary channels in HD ever again. They go out and spend a gazilion dollars on HD equipment and they broadcast in SD. They may as well sell their HD gear and invest in a whole bunch of the old trusty m7 VHS video cameras. #insane
I agree (Pertinax) about 9 with Rizzolli and Isles 1 episode left in the season and they stop, also Nikita ( at least it is on DVD) Person of Interest was just getting into the new season when they took it off.
@Pertinax – good man, you’ve saved me the bother of typing the same thing. We used to get one bucket of sh!t with a nugget of gold in it somewhere but now we get five. Still only one nugget tho’ and it’s not always in the same place and sometimes it’s in a different bucket.
@GuanoLad – the networks won’t be getting any more bandwidth and there is no room to upgrade additional channels to HD. Hopefully they will move to MPEG-4 compression before humans set foot on Mars – it’s only been around since 1999.
But you go ahead and get that 4K television for Christmas. All those extra pixels doing nothing – SD will never look better… (than SD).
Here is HSV 7’s fianl moments;
youtube.com/watch?v=etoG8W-1OHo
Huge kudos to HSV-7 for being the only station in Melbourne to give analog TV something of a proper send off. The analog channel (only) ran a five minute montage of 57 years of broadcasting before switching off the carrier.
The other Melbourne channels just flipped the off switch on the transmitters at 9am mid-program.
Someone’s posted HSV-7’s montage here:
youtube.com/watch?v=1wQj8Vuw2Q8
@James S – youtu.be/1wQj8Vuw2Q8
While digital gives quantity for content its does not give picture quality! Networks are cramming so much channels into a given space they are reducing bandwidth and giving us highly compressed crap and if people chose to accept that then who’s to blame them I still got my 45’s never liked the sound of Digital CD for the very same reason Compression
Goodbye Analogue tv, Hello Digital television.
I want to see HSV 7’s final analogue Moments online.
Yes there is a channel just for people who like repeats of TBBT, actually 1 1/2 channels.
People addicted to home shopping can catch-up on ads they missed with the two hour later repeat channel. Centrelink has taken payments to force the queueing unemployed to which makes claiming the dole much less attractive.
One night there are 6 things you want to watch all over-lapping because of staggered programming. And nothing on the next night.
We subsidise kids watching even more TV than they should.
With 5 Channels Nine still can’t find time to show the final episode of a season of a US drama e.g. Rizzoli & Isles, Person of Interest, Nikita.
There is a 24 hour news channel that hardly anyone watches, and yet more and more news disrupting regular programming.
I hope this means image quality will improve, and more HD upgrades are on the horizon.
… this just as the BBC alone announces 5…yes 5…FTA HD Channels….
bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/new-hd-channels.html
Australia is struggling to get any….
One/Gem/7Mate don’t compare to what other countries currently get.