The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy announced yesterday the introduction of the Get Ready for Digital TV awareness campaign.

Starting Sunday April 5th the government will begin airing television and radio advertisements as well as distributing point of sale brochures and hardware labels in preparing people to ‘get ready’ for the switchover to digital television.

The Senator stated that this was a milestone event in Australia’s transition to digital television, saying that:

“Digital television switchover is our biggest national format change since the swap to decimal currency, and it’s important that Australia get ready,”

The Minister stated that the switchover would mean new content, better sound and vision as well as the ability for broadcasters to use additional features.

When asked whether the government would consider subsidising set-top boxes the Minister stated that there was a pilot underway in Mildura, the first place to undergo the switchover treatment, to evaluate whether funding would be required.

“We’re going to see whether it works,” He said

Some community broadcasters are worried they’ll be left behind when it comes to the switchover. The Minister said that they wont, assuring:

“There are a whole range of technical issues, it’s not just money, it’s technical issues, and we’ve been working for a while trying to resolve those,”

“I can’t speculate what’s in the budget, but we are not forgetting community TV,”

The switchover is expected to be complete by the end of 2013.

Senator Stephen Conroy from Ben Grubb on Vimeo.

Tech Wired attended the Get Ready for Digital TV Conference