Well, the US has begun its transition to digital terrestrial television. The transition has been messy in the corridors of power in the US simply because of concern about the disenfranchising of large numbers of the US population were simply not prepared. The mess is that now rather than the transition taking place on a coordinated basis (although in an incredibly short time span), we now have the slow and gradual transition where it is not clear from here in the stratosphere exactly what is transitioning when … other than knowing it finishes in June. The reason simply being that the exact timing is voluntary. This is a worse situation than they had to be honest but the reports coming back are painting a picture of little or no fuss.
The reported figures of the 421 out of 1800 stations that transitioned on the original date, is that things went smoothly and the call figures from the federal call centres is a little over a quarter of the expected figures.
So will this give an impetus in the UK, to a shortening of the transition period? Doubtful, but there have been some changes in the plan due to other factors – bringing in the Channel Islands to 2010 rather than 2013 and the announcement that there will be HD before the 2010 World Cup, although only in the London region.
