Australia’s progress on digital changeover

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has released its second Digital Tracker quarterly summary, keeping an eye on how Australia is converting and adapting to digital television.

According to the survey, covering the period April to June 2009:

• 93 per cent of Australians are aware of the Government’s plan to migrate television signals over to digital.  This included 85 per cent of households in the Remote and Central Australia region (where the roll-out of digital is limited so far largely to ABC and SBS)  and 96 per cent of Mildura households.
• 49 per cent are positive towards the transition to digital TV.  15 per cent of respondents are against the digital changeover and 36 per cent are unconcerned.  A fifth of those against the changeover were from households with a total annual income of less than $30,000, while almost as many were from households where the main source of income is government benefits or pension.  Regional Western Australia recorded the highest rate of negativity (19 per cent) while Perth had the lowest (12 per cent).
• 53 per cent of Australian homes have converted their main television set or tuner to digital.  This varied from 22 per cent in Remote and Central Australia to 75 per cent in Mildura. 
• 83 per cent of Australian homes intend to convert to digital TV, though 76 per cent said they will not convert until just before the switchover date.  However, less than one per cent of Australian households knew when their area would switchover completely from analogue to digital television.  (The Mildura region, the first region to cutover from analogue to digital next year, recorded a 13 per cent awareness rate)
• Almost three quarters (74 per cent) of Australian households were aware of what they need to do to migrate to digital television.  This varied between 51 per cent in Remote Central and Eastern Australia and 83 per cent in Mildura.
• 31 per cent of Australians surveyed nominated better picture quality as the main benefit of digital, followed by additional channels (25 per cent), better reception (16 per cent), better quality overall (5 per cent) and better sound quality (3 per cent).
• 83 per cent of Australian households that have converted to digital TV are satisfied with digital TV.  This varied from 63 per cent in Remote and Central Australia to 93 per cent in Perth.

More than 9900 interviews were conducted across the 33 identified changeover regions nationwide.

Source: Digital Ready