Digital TV

10 Pages 2480 Words

skills are definitely required for the future health of the digital TV industry. However, since the demand for specialist IT skills is increasing and the human resources are limited, there exists a shortfall – one that appears to worsen. It has been reported by e-commerce consultancy, Spectrum Strategy, that over 850,000 e-business jobs could be created in Britain by 2003. But unfortunately, due to skills shortages, the digital TV industry among other industries, is threatened to have one in ten vacancies unfilled.

Analogue Switch-Off:
To "keep up" with modern technology, the UK government strongly urged the country to convert from analogue to digital television sets. The government had some idea of a desired date for the television industry to complete its analogue switch-off, and stated that switch-off will occur when 70% of the population owns a digital television, which could take place between 2006 and 2010. This lack of clarity creates another factor in holding people back from understanding digital. Experts within the television industry indicated that once a definite switch-off date has been announced, the 70% target will be reached "quite quickly." The government has said that before switch-over can happen, 99.4% of the population must be covered by digital transmissions and that 95% of consumers must have access to digital equipment. However, previous estimates had predicted that the 70% target will be reached in 2015, at the earliest. And because there is a large number of confused customers, experts doubted that broadcasters would be able to switch to digital by 2006. As a matter of fact, recent research by the Consumers Association indicated that customer confusion is one reason why switch-over from analogue to digital by 2006 at the earliest, and 2010 at the latest, as specified by government regulations, is very unlikely to be. Research shows that while nearly half of Britain plans to convert to digital t...