A study by Digital TV Research has concluded that the analogue to digital migration of sub-Saharan African television is expected to reach 95.5 percent of households with televisions by 2018.
This follows the 14 million sub-Saharan television viewers who already switched to a digital signal last year. Digital TV Research expects another 49 million television viewers to switch to digital over the course of the next five years.
The study has forecasted Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia to complete this process by 2015 and lead the way for the sub-Saharan region’s digital migration.
“Even we have been surprised by the pace of change and progress in the region’s television market in the year since the last edition of this report. These are exciting times for Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Simon Murray, the report’s author.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has set 2015 as the global deadline for the migration of analogue to digital signal for all of Africa. So far only Mauritius is the only country to complete the switch.
HumanIPO reported yesterday (Wednesday) that the East African Community (EAC) set their digital migration deadline for December 31, 2012. Rwanda missed this deadline due to a lack of decoders and so did three of the other member states, leaving Tanzania as the only country to have successfully met the deadline.
According to Digital TV Research, two-thirds of viewers still watch TV through analogue signals.
