additional info :
Analog TV broadcasting comes to an end in Japan after 58 years
National Jul. 24, 2011 - 04:10PM JST ( 58 )
TOKYO —
Analog TV broadcasting in Japan ended after 58 years on Sunday, except in the three quake and tsunami-hit prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima, where the changeover to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting has been delayed until the end of March 2012.
Although there has been a rush to buy digital TVs at electric appliance stores in June and this month, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry says that as many as 700,000 households nationwide have not yet procured digital TVs or tuners and antennas.
The ministry has set up ‘‘digital support centers’’ to answer answer questions on what type of tuners are necessary and how to operate remote controllers for digital-capable TVs. Officials said they have been getting a lot of calls from elderly people.
At midnight, analog TV screens will go blank. Currently, there is a notice informing viewers where to make inquiries. The ministry is operating a 24-hour telephone hotline at 0570-07-0101 to handle all inquiries.
The changeover from analog to digital TV was first announced in December 2003. Since then, some 80 million TV sets have been rendered obsolete, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association estimates.
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