Raymond Snoddy on media: Whitehaven faces painful process

able to endure. But in four weeks' time, all the analogue TV channels
will disappear in the dead of night.

The idea of analogue switch-off, or as government spin-doctors prefer to
refer to it, 'digital switchover', has been around for so long that it
is deeply shocking that something is actually happening.

But now the government is pulling the plug on the people's telly unless
they go out and buy new equipment, a process that will continue until
the end of 2012. Almost everyone will be affected in some way,
especially as many people will need to buy converters for all those
second and third TV sets.

Not even Gordon Brown will be able to avoid an election during that time
and there could be a lot of very angry people as a result. The last
politician who tried to mess with the television was Ted Heath during
the three-day week; then, the screens went blank only after 10.30 in the
evening, but it no doubt contributed to the eventual downfall of his
government.

Dipping into the BBC licence for about £600m to help convert the
old and poor also means that there are many programmes that no one will
ever get to see, whatever the state of their digital screens.

The voluntary move to digital, at least on one TV in the home, has gone
so much more quickly and painlessly than anyone expected. The last
compulsory stage and the impact on all those other millions of analogue
TV sets and video recorders could yet cause considerable
consternation.

But Whitehaven day is a good moment to take a snapshot of the current
state of TV in the UK.

All the base numbers were helpfully set out at last week's Mediatel
Future of Television conference.

The UK now leads the world with 21.4m digital TV households - 9.1m of
them Freeview, 8.6m Sky and the rest cable.

By the end of next year, digital penetration is forecast by ABN AMRO to
reach a remarkable 94% on at least one set with Freeview the big winner
from the switchover. It should end up with 13.7m homes in five years'
time, creating a more significant platform for advertisers.

Commercial TV revenue will start shrinking this year before resuming
growth in 2008 and continuing to grow by between 1% and 2% a year until
2012.

However, two anomalies stand out: the low levels of high-definition
penetration and, to a lesser extent, personal video recorders.

There are 2.4m HD-ready sets out there in the UK, but only 450,000
subscribers. Neither Ofcom nor the government seems interested in making
HD available for Freeview.

The progress of PVRs in the UK has been steady, but there is a long way
to go if current forecasts are to be met, with Jupiter Research
predicting 34% PVR penetration by 2012.

But at least some of the people of Whitehaven might find all the worry
about the state of HD television and PVRs more than a little precious.
They are the people who are about to lose their five-channel analogue
TV, courtesy of Gordon Brown and chums.

30 SECONDS ON ... WHITEHAVEN

- Whitehaven, originally a fishing hamlet on the Cumbrian coast,
developed into a major coal-exporting port in the 17th century after
being acquired by the Lowther family.

- A booming ship-building industry further transformed the town - which
was named by Viking settlers - and led to its involvement in the slave
trade.

- On 15 August 1947, 104 miners were killed in the William Pit Disaster,
one of many accidents over the years. Local industries gradually
declined as the port struggled to cope with the increasing size of
merchant ships.

- Mildred Washington, the grandmother of the first US president, is
buried in a local cemetery, while the poet William Wordsworth was a
regular visitor.

- The local coastline is one of the best places in the world to observe
40-tonne basking sharks.