KUALA LUMPUR: The Communications and Multimedia Ministry is confident analogue television broadcast will be switched off by the third quarter of this year for a complete transition to digital broadcast.
Minister Gobind Singh Deo said the migration process from analogue to digital will start this month.
“We are in the process of an analogue shutdown as we want to start digital system throughout Malaysia. I can say our effort to shut down analogue broadcast and launch digital television will start this month and we hope it will be completed by June.
“In whatever circumstances, we are quite confident that there will be a full shutdown by the third quarter of this year,” he said during Ministers’ Question Time at Dewan Rakyat today.
He was replying to a supplementary question by Datuk Seri Hasan Arifin (BN-Rompin) on whether the government proposes to close the analogue system in the country.
In this regard, Gobind said the National Broadcast Digitalisation being implemented by MYTV is proceeding smoothly in which Digital Television Terrestrial (DTT) coverage has achieved up to 98% of the populated areas today.
He said MYTV is also providing Direct to Home (DTH) broadcast via satellite broadcast to cover blind spots in the country.
“Digital TV coverage can be enjoyed by the people throughout the country today if they install TV decoder and UHF aerial on their existing TV set or buy a TV set equipped iDTV decoder or a DTH decoder set,” he said.
He added that as at March 30, MYTV has distributed two million decoders comprising 1,651,333 DTT decoders and 24,482 DTH decoders to eligible low-income households (B40).
He was replying to the original question by Hasan on whether MYTV would be continued and the outcome of the discussion between MYTV and Telekom Malaysia Berhad.
Commenting further, Gobind said the negotiation between MYTV Broadcasting Sdn Bhd and TM on Nov 30 last year have resolved several commercial issues. — Bernama
