Wales to become UK's first digital TV nation

The Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff

Wales will become the UK’s first digital TV nation on Wednesday  (tomorrow) when the analogue signal is switched off for the final time.

The Welsh switchover began last August and will conclude tomorrow with the Wenvoe transmitter group, which covers Cardiff, Newport and south east Wales.

The first stage of the Wenvoe switchover process began earlier this month when analogue BBC Two was turned off and some new digital channels became available.

Tomorrow the remaining analogue channels – BBC One, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five – will switch to digital and the remaining digital channels will become available.

Retuning

If you have Freeview, BT Vision or Top Up TV you’ll will need to re-tune your equipment.

Although Wales will be first UK nation to complete the switchover , the West Country, Border and Granada TV areas have already gone digital.

The switchover is being managed by Digital UK, the organisation with responsibility for the nationwide switchover process, who can be contacted on 08456 50 50 50.

Digital switchover is the nationwide programme to move all TV services from analogue to digital between 2008 and 2012.

Digital switchover

Ofcom’s role in the switchover process includes licensing the broadcasters, planning the use of the radio spectrum, and assisting on coverage issues.

Our wider role is deciding how best to use the valuable spectrum freed-up as a result of the switchover – the so-called digital dividend.

This dividend will deliver significant benefits for people as new services are launched to use the freed-up spectrum.

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