English Yokel

Digital TV and Radio

What is it with all this pressure to switch from analogue to digital for both TV and now Radio? Yokel has been pondering this one for quite a while, and still doesn't think he has got to the bottom of it.

The initial reason has to be greed. Greed by the government, in particular HM Treasury. It has already sold off all the physical assets that it can lay its hands on, but still it has to fund the feckless reckless spending habits of "Prudence". So Ofcom seems to have been charged with selling off the TV frequencies to raise as much as the mobile phone auctions did. Some hope in that! The phone companies are still ruing their exuberant bidding, and the word is out on the street. Then of course the same trick can be played on the audio/radio frequencies and get even more lovely loot for HMG to waste invest in scams like the Olympics necessary Social (re)developments. Money always seems to be a good motivator, and if it is a Socialist doing the deciding, that the money is someone else's is an extra bonus.

But is that all? One of the features of the Government Wartime Broadcasting Service was its regionalisation. With feeds into every local radio and national radio & TV station, the WBS would take over the transmitters and broadcast its own information service to the population. Of great importance to this was the development of local radio in the UK, which would have permitted people in one region to be given different information from those in another region who faced different difficulties. This could be brought about by the low power and restricted range of the local radio transmitters. Interesting that there were 9 regions, just the same as the number of EU Regions in the UK! The current plans for digital terrestrial TV and for digital radio use frequencies that continue to provide local services only. So the opportunity to tailor the government announcements to the needs of particular areas continues to be a feature of the system.

But with digital, there is the added advantage that encryption is much more easily applied. This will enable the WBS easily to confine messages to those for whom it is intended. The technology is proven, it is how BSkyB enforces its payments, for example. Yokel does not wish to put ideas into the head of TV Licensing, but that would be one way of ensuring they collect their tax! Encrypt the Freeview channels, and then issue the necessary card to those who had paid their TV Licence Fee. This of course has the advantage that TV reception can then be turned on and off individually, by those in authority. BSkyB turn a (former) subscriber off when their payments are not made. Now for the control freaks, this must be getting exciting! Thus the mandatory switch to digital TV.

The pressure to digital radio is again greed. There are frequencies to be sold off. But again there is the control. The current plan would have all public broadcasting withdrawn from VHF FM, and Medium Wave, with Long Wave if they can. And push all the audience onto DAB. The very DAB system that the Germans are turning off because it is no good. No, says the report (page 8) it will do the UK very well. To paraphrase the report a little bit, it is probably the best thing since sliced bread. That the Germans and the French are going for an alternative system (DMB-A) (same report, page 6) is immaterial. Well at least until the essential Harmonisation kicks in, when the whole of the Great and Glorious Nation (including the province formerly known as England) will be compelled to change to the Franco-German standard, because its so ... ... European. By that time Yokel fears that encryption will have been built in, and that the Citizen's ID card will be necessary to permit the reception of radio.

Why? Yokel guesses that George Orwell had the answer.

Yes, Yokel will be careful not to sit on his tinfoil hat when he has his sit down. Thinking? No more for today!