Arqiva CEO, John Cresswell, will be joined at Crystal Palace by Mark Thompson, BBC Director General, to turn off analogue TV services to the capital. During the following day, Crystal Palace and 52 relay transmitters across London and the Home Counties – from St Albans to Dorking – will switch to a new high-power digital system for Freeview reaching into five million homes across the capital and beyond.

With 10 times the power of the current digital TV service, more than 400,000 viewers in coverage blackspots across the region will be able to watch Freeview TV for the first time tomorrow. Millions more will benefit from an improved digital TV signal and better reception across the fifty plus channels on Freeview, including HD.

London’s history of pioneering broadcasts
• World’s first regular TV service was begun by BBC on 2 November 1936 from Alexandra Palace
• The first programme broadcast was a bulletin of British Movietone News
• ‘The Estate’ will be the last programme broadcast on the BBC One analogue TV service
• Crystal Palace broadcast the first colour TV test transmissions in November 1956, with a regular colour service starting on BBC2 in 1967
• Europe’s first free-to-air terrestrial HDTV broadcasts started from Crystal Palace in 2009

Lightshow at Crystal Palace broadcast tower
Arqiva, the company which is delivering the £630 million digital switchover project (DSO) across the UK, will mark this momentous occasion in London’s broadcasting history by lighting up Crystal Palace tower on the nights of 18th and 19th April.

• More than 200,000 watts – 7.5 billion candlepower – of energy-efficient lighting, the same wattage used to light the Eiffel Tower in Paris, has been installed in readiness
• At 21.15 on the 18th Sir David Attenborough and Professor Brian Cox will push the button to illuminate the 219-metre tall structure
• Visible across London, the explosion of light will culminate with a beam of light shooting up the tower and radiating out over London, representing the invisible digital TV signals London’s largest ever broadcast engineering project London’s digital switchover is part of the UK’s largest-ever broadcast engineering project.
• Over five years, Arqiva has installed new digital equipment at over 50 TV transmission sites across the capital
• At Crystal Palace a new 17.5 metre digital antenna, weighing 4 tonnes, has been placed at the top of the 219 metre tower to replace the analogue and low-power digital TV antennas
• The switchover has cleared London’s airwaves for the delivery of next generation, high-speed 4G mobile broadband services in the near future


Prime Minister David Cameron, said: "The Digital Switchover is a landmark project that is helping drive forwards our goal of creating a truly Digital Britain. The London Switchover marks another key milestone, and I congratulate Arqiva for successfully undertaking the largest digital network project this country has ever experienced. Public-service broadcasting has been a vital part of life in the UK for 75 years, helping make British broadcasting the envy of the world. Our Switchover will leave a truly 21st Century television service, bringing greater choice and convenience to homes across the UK." Sir David Attenborough, broadcaster and naturalist, said: “Thanks to public service broadcasting, for the past 75 years we could all take part in the most memorable moments in the UK’s history. Think about the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 or England winning the World Cup in 1966. Now with the switch to digital TV, we’re celebrating the start of a new, very exciting time in UK broadcasting when viewers will have more channels to choose from and a better viewing experience than ever before. This is as wonderful as anything I’ve experienced in my 60 years of working in the TV industry.”

John Cresswell, CEO of Arqiva, said: “Digital switchover is the 21
st century equivalent of the introduction of colour TV, bringing crystal-clear pictures, more channels and interactive features to the whole of the UK. With London’s rich history of broadcast firsts and almost five million homes served by Crystal Palace broadcast tower, London switchover is a very special moment in the nationwide switchover project. Behind the scenes, the scale of this national infrastructure project is immense. By completion in October we will have transformed a network that took 25 years build in only five years, transforming this vital public service into a modern platform that will meet the evolving TV viewing needs of the UK population.”


source: Arqiva

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