TV screens in 38 cities without STBs to go blank from Monday

IBF board stressed such a move is necessary to smoothen the transition from analogue to digital cable TV

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | March 28, 2013

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) has reiterated its commitment to television broadcasting digitisation. As mandated by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting under the Cable Television Network Amendment Ordinance 2011, for the 38 cities notified in the Phase 2 sequence of digitisation rollout, broadcasters will comprehensively switch off all analogue signals from midnight Sunday, March 31, 2013.

At its meeting held on March 192013, the IBF board stressed such a move is necessary to smoothen the transition from analogue to digital cable TV.

IBF members have been running regular awareness campaigns to educate consumers on the various benefits of digitisation. Some of these benefits include better picture and sound quality, enhanced services such as high definition, video on demand content and eventually, higher quality content. In addition, digitisation will also enable viewers to choose and pay for only those channels they want, rather than pick from packages with fixed prices. Digitisation will also bring about greater transparency between broadcasters, cable operators and consumers.

The March 31 Phase 2 deadline covers Agra, Ahmadabad, Allahabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Howrah, Hyderabad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Meerut, Mysore, Nagpur, Nasik, Navi Mumbai, Patna, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Rajkot, Ranchi, Sholapur, Srinagar, Surat, Thane, Vadodara, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam.

IBF President Man Jit Singh said, “IBF and its members are committed to the successful implementation of digitisation in India. Our awareness campaign has received very good response. We are confident that the successful implementation of DAS-II will tremendously improve the quality of television content and consequent viewership in the country.”

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