BribieG Posted March 12, 2007 Posted March 12, 2007 Recent article on CNET concludes that only one quarter of Australian households now watch digital FTA TV. http://www.cnet.com.au/tvs/0,239035250,339273616,00.htm Compared to over three quarters in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6197747.stm Bloody dreadful. Last time I was in the UK in 2000 quite a few people asked me "hey, do you have radial tyres yet in Australia?" - I think there had been a show on TV ridiculing us backwards colonials. We used to be right up there with the technology but obviously slipping into 3rd world status in many ways.
wahroonga farm Posted March 12, 2007 Posted March 12, 2007 Hmmm! 2 million homes from 2.3m sales is rather optimistic. I'd suggest most early adopters wud have 2 or 3 DVB-T capable units, to match their multiple viewing/ recording requirements. I'd guess that 1 million homes cud be closer to it. Pretty pathetic really, but (unlike the UK) it doesn't offer anything: 1. Most get reliable PAL analogue = SD. And HD capable sets are far and few between. 2. Where's the extra content? So in reality, Aussies can simply see through our abysmal broadcast policies.
Timmy Downawell Posted March 12, 2007 Posted March 12, 2007 Recent article on CNET concludes that only one quarter of Australian households now watch digital FTA TV.Compared to over three quarters in the UK See my answer to your concerns in this similar thread.
dtvone Posted March 12, 2007 Posted March 12, 2007 Hmmm! 2 million homes from 2.3m sales is rather optimistic. I'd suggest most early adopters wud have 2 or 3 DVB-T capable units, to match their multiple viewing/ recording requirements. I think you could be on the money, we have purchased 4 DVB-T capable devices for my place and three at my parents with 4 of them currently operational, two at each location.
Chris137 Posted March 13, 2007 Posted March 13, 2007 Then why did the phone survey conducted by ACMA in October last year reach the conclusion that as many as 29% of households had gone digital? 2 million seems like a pretty reasonable figure, in light of that finding. Also, the UK counts pay-tv services as digital, because satellite and cable providers automatically carry Freeview channels; that adds another 40-45% on top of terrestrial penetration. So only about 35% of the population actually have stand-alone Freeview STBs. If only OUR pay-tv companies carried all FTA digital channels, our penetration figures would jump up dramatically.
BribieG Posted March 13, 2007 Author Posted March 13, 2007 When I visited the UK in 2000 many households such as my brother's had widescreen CRT digital TVS with built in tuners (sd only of course). stores such as Curry's were full of them for about A$1500 which, at the time was comparable to what we were paying here for a stereo Sony. Set top boxes were not a feature and have only become popular with the flood of plasmas and lcds without tuners, such as has happened in Australia. However there was already quite a solid digital penetration via the previous generation of dedicated digital CRTs accumulating from the late 90s to the mid 2000s at a time when the venerable Senator Richard Alston was only waffling over here.
Martin UK Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 (edited) Hi guys, I've just found this forum. I think the reason for the large take-up of digital TV in the UK is down to the amount of channels that are available. http://www.freeview.co.uk/channels/?__SITE=public&p[0]=channels There is a lot of choice, and it provides a great incentive to buy a £30 box just for FreeView. However, at least you Australians have high definition TV on your free to air platform. Its looking like we will never have this in the UK. Our media regulator and watchdog of the spectrum, Ofcom, is planning to auction off around 108 MHz of UHF after the last analogue TV transmission is switched off. If this happens, is not even likely that existing FreeView platform will be expanded let alone converted to H.D. Campaigns have started http://www.hdforall.org.uk/ Just a bit of news from here in the UK. I've browsed your website and forums out of interest, as I am considering the idea of working in Australia. I must say the satellite way of receiving TV looks really complicated to set up. All the best from the UK! Edited March 20, 2007 by Martin UK
Wing Nut Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 I must say the satellite way of receiving TV looks really complicated to set up. All the best from the UK!Not necessarily complicated, although setting up your own homebrew satellite system may be daunting. Typically, however, a phone call and credit card can have someone on your roof fairly quickly and watching Foxtel, for example, shortly after. When it comes to bang per buck though, what you get here is no where near the typical UK/Europe PayTV offerings.
BribieG Posted March 21, 2007 Author Posted March 21, 2007 I must say the satellite way of receiving TV looks really complicated to set up. All the best from the UK! Hi Martin, sounds like you may be in a metro area with fibre optic running past every home?! My relations in the UK all live in little Yorkshire villages or ex mining (pit) villages in County Durham, and there's no shortage of satellite dishes on rooftops there! Got lost in a little old pit village near Consett in County D. and ended up in a street of really mean old terraced 2-up / 2-down miners cottages. Out of about 40 houses in the row I counted 15 satellite dishes, not counting some of the houses where they had 2 dishes pointing in slightly different directions!!
matturn Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 Also, the UK counts pay-tv services as digital, because satellite and cable providers automatically carry Freeview channels That's not the reason as such, it's more that they usually transmitted digitally. The "digital" category in the UK is often eschewed in favour of a "multichannel" when it comes to stats, because it accounts for analogue cable (and historically analogue Sky and BSatB) as well.
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