Down Under: New Government Told Viewers Not Yet Tuned to HD

It is a familiar tale: Broadcast networks are being told they still have to do more educating before the masses of consumers will adequately understand the upcoming benefits of DTV and HD services.

The latest such warning came from the operations chief of the Ten Network in Australia, Grant Blackley, who made his comments at about the same time the country's next minister of communications was committing to a national analogue turn-off deadline of December 2013. The minister-designate is part of the new Labour government that was just elected to office.

Blackley said nearly a third of Australian homes now have terrestrial DTV and about 20 per cent will have HD-channel access by the end of 2007, but "As an industry we still have a job to do", according to a story in The Australian newspaper.

Ten Network plans to go on-air with its new Ten-HD channel on Sunday, 16 December.