Sunday, March 06, 2005

Free set top boxes for the poor and vulnerable?

The government is considering whether to subsidise set top boxes for the poor and vulnerable as the analogue TV signal starts being removed from 2008. Bless 'em!! In my experience, council estates typically have the highest penetration of Sky TV in the country, what else is there to do all day on benefits!! For the more entrepreneurial poor, they will be able to sell the boxes on no doubt, having "lost" their box.

I also wonder why the most populous part of the country, London and the South East, will be the last to receive digital TV in 2011. Naturally, the BBC has done well for itself by ensuring that the set top boxes will not have contain conditional-access technology, thus preventing any possibility of the BBC moving to a subscription funding model.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Curse the BBC. I resent having to pay for a licence fee when I barely watch the thing anyway. If at least they used the money to create decent programming and coverage of public-interest events it would be some consolation, but instead we get soaps and interior design and 'top 100 TV mullets' shows. I'd rather have a subscription fee that I could choose not to pay.