The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) ruled out shutting down the analog broadcast of television (TV) signal this year, mostly because of the slow adoption of digital terrestrial TV (DTT) among households in the provinces.
“We’re looking at this year [analog shutdown], but it’s still tentative,” NTC Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez said.
The government has since been planning to shut down analog TV broadcasts this year, but Lopez said most of the households, particularly in the provinces, are not digital ready.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology earlier estimated that more than 14 million households nationwide rely on free to air analog TV broadcasts.
“It’s hard to shut it down because not everyone is digital ready,” Lopez said, pointing out that digital TV penetration in the country is only below 50 percent.
“The penetration rate in Metro Manila is high, but not in the provinces. But the other networks have their own roll out, so we will get there,,” she added.
Last year, GMA Network Inc. announced an additional investment of more than P1 billion for the expansion of its digital TV broadcast nationwide.
In 2020, GMA rolled out “GMA Affordabox,” a plug-and-play device that can easily be connected to an analog TV in order to receive digital television broadcast.
TV5 Network Inc. in September 2021 launched its DTT top box set called Sulit TV Box, while ABS-CBN Corp. introduced TVplus box in 2015.
In November 2013, , the NTC issued Memorandum Circular No. 05-11-2013, adopting Japan’s ISDB-T standard for the country’s migration to digital TV broadcast and reception.
