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Digital Broadcasting

Volume 481: debated on Tuesday 28 October 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what progress has been made in improving the digital signal for terrestrial television in the UK; and what further steps are planned. (229852)

Digital signals cannot be increased in power until analogue television services are switched off as unacceptable levels of interference would otherwise occur. The digital signal will be improved over the next four years as digital switchover takes place on a region-by-region basis across the UK, completing in 2012. The process commenced in the Border region where the first switchover has already occurred at Whitehaven in Cumbria. The Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland constituency is in the Tyne-Tees region which is planned to switch in 2012 along with London, the south of England and Northern Ireland.