Digital Television
In July 2004, Australia was in a transitional phase: digital television was broadcast in parallel to the old analog television signals. The stated plan was full handover to digital by 2008 and shutdown of all analog television broadcast.
In September 2005, Coonan announced a review of the digital television situation. It was noted that the government had spent 1 billion dollars supporting the change from analog TV to digital TV. The current plan to switch off analog TV by 2008 in metropolitan areas and by 2011 in regional markets was unlikely to be workable because takeup of digital receivers had been poor.
The minister supervised the creation of "Digital Australia", a new federally funded government body for coordinating the transition to digital television. Andrew Townend (former COO of Digital UK) was appointed executive director in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Helen Coonan, Minister For Communications, Information Technology and The Arts
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy.... In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)