It’s a week before the first phase of digital switchover happens in South Devon, and even with the high publicity campaigns in the region over the past year there still seems to be a fair few people who havn’t even converted their main television set to Freeview yet. The majority of people I know do seem to atleast know when its happening, and that they’ll have to do something to keep recieving television after the second switchover in a few weeks, but the main reason why some people are holding off, and the main question which people keep asking seems to be – why?

Many people don’t seem to either fully understand, or want to except the reasons why digital switchover is happening, and seem content with their existing four channel lineup. (Channel 5 cannot be recieved with Analogue in South Devon). The fact of the matter is, is that the world moves on, and whether you like it or not, at some stage you have to embrace change, and that time has come. I’m sure there were waves of people saying exactly the same thing when colour replaced black and white, but given the choice these days, those same people would more than likely choose colour over black and white without blinking.

So what’s so wrong with changing to digital? Switchover has been a long time coming, and set top boxes have come down considerably in price over the past couple years, so there’s no real excuse. Even people on certain benefits are entitled to a free set top box and installation from the government. There’s even the incentive that most people overlook, which is that everyone currently spends over £100 on a TV Licence, no matter if you have analogue or Freeview, you both pay the same, even though on analogue you recieve just 2 services from the BBC, whereas on Freeview you get 7 channels, and loads of digital radio stations.

The numbers; according to DigitalUK, currently 74% of the country can recieve Freeview, but the government need to make that avaliable to everyone (or as many as possible), and that can’t be done unless digital switchover happens across the country. We can’t stand back and watch the world move on while we don’t, just because of a few people who don’t think its needed, and arn’t willing to spend £30 on a box.

So if you’re one of these people who are still umming and arring, stop living in the past and upgrade, cause guess what, most people don’t want to live and use a system which was designed over 50 years ago.