British Sky Broadcasting is expected to announce an early switch-off date for its analogue services in its annual financial results tomorrow. The satellite broadcaster is believed to planning to turn off its analogue signal in August 2001, a year and a half earlier than expected.
The group launched its digital service in October 1998 and has been dropping its analogue channels in recent months to encourage customers to make the switch to digital (see BSkyB Drops More Analogue Channels In Favour Of Digital).
The launch of Sky Digital has proved costly for the group, particularly since it began giving away set-top boxes to push subscription levels (see BSkyB Signs Sports Internet Deal As Digital Expansion Takes Its Toll). An early switch-over will save the company up to £60m in transmission costs but the group will be obliged to pay £30m in compensation to SES-Astra, the satellite group, for early termination of its contract.
Chief executive Tony Ball had previously set the end of 2002 as a target date for switchover, but the company now believes that all analogue subscribers can be persuaded to switch by August next year.
Last year culture secretary Chris Smith said that the deadline for an analogue switch-over would be between 2006 and 2010, when the vast proportion of the population would have access to digital systems (see Chris Smith Sets Out Digital Agenda).
