Memorandum submitted by the British Pensioners
& Trade Union Action Association
1. The BPUAA believes the Government should
pay the full cost of the conversion to Digital TV, including the
cost of replacement video recorders for all pensioner' households.
The reasons for this are:
(a) When Channel 5 started broadcasting
they paid the costs of converting/upgrading televisions and video
recorders.
(b) In the two Welsh villages of Ferryside
and Llanstaffen all households got free digital television conversion.
(c) Since the Government is expected to
make around £3 billion from the sell off of the vacant analogue
channels the BPTUAA believes there is sufficient money available
to pay for free up grades to all pensioner' households.
2. The statement published in the "Ofcom
Report" that a decision of principle about financial support
for access to TV has already been taken by Parliament is untrue.
(a) The statement refereed to which says
"that people over 75 are eligible to receive free TV licences
and people under 75 who are registered blind are eligible to receive
a 50% reduction" was never taken by Parliament in a debate
on digital TV.
(b) The BPTUAA would welcome a parliamentary
debate on the question of the cost of digital upgrade for pensioner'
households, particularly as the "Ofcom Report" also
says that "In terms of `fairness' this decision is itself
debatable".
3. The BPTUAA believes that the Government
is seriously under estimating the problems of conversion to digital
TV. Digital TV requires excellent reception conditions, unlike
analogue it cannot cope with poor reception areas and experts
believe it will never ever be able to reach all the households
that currently enjoy analogue signals.
4. Our survey shows that many pensioner' households
are quite content with watching BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel Four
and Channel 5 and do not wish to spend their meagre savings on
having extra digital TV channels which they may never watch.
5. The BPTUAA seriously questions the Government's
right to switch off analogue TV signals thus effectively taking
away the ability to watch television unless you pay for an upgrade.
6. Finally the BPTUAA believes there should
be no question of switching off analogue signals until all these
questions have been satisfactorily resolved.
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