Terrestrial television goes completely digital in most areas of Japan

TOKYO, July 24 Kyodo - Japanese broadcasters ceased analog transmission across the country at noon Sunday after nearly 60 years, except in areas hit hard by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, completing the shift to terrestrial digital broadcasting.
Some television viewers, however, were apparently caught off guard despite a heavy publicity campaign ahead of the major technological shift. Officials in the broadcasting industry estimate around 100,000 households, primarily those of elderly people, were not equipped with necessary receivers.
Broadcasters and government offices were inundated with calls. Public broadcaster NHK said it had received around 11,500 inquiries in the two hours after the analog service went offline at noon, replaced by a screen message citing the switch to digital transmission and the phone numbers of the government's terrestrial digital broadcasting call center and broadcasters.
The center in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, said calls increased sharply after the shift. ''There were people who knew nothing about the shift to terrestrial digital services until (analog) programs ended,'' said an official at the center.
At a news conference, President Michisada Hirose of the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan indicated the group's readiness to step up efforts to promote the shift to digital.
Digital broadcasting provides higher quality images and sound, while broadcasters can transmit data in a compressed format using only two-thirds of the bandwidth needed for analog broadcasting.
The extra bandwidth can be used for new types of broadcasting for mobile handsets and telecommunications for the purpose of disaster prevention, ministry officials said.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications exempted viewers in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures from the nationwide start of terrestrial digital TV broadcasting, putting off the shift there until March next year.
Japan's analog television service began in 1953.
Japanese broadcasters digitalized their transmission of programs in stages after the relevant law passed parliament in 2001. Digital broadcasting, along with analog transmission, began in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya in 2003 and spread nationwide in 2006.
The ministry said it will provide advice over the phone around the clock at its call center and keep its temporary advice centers set up at 1,600 locations throughout the country.
The ministry also said as a makeshift measure that on Sunday it started leasing tuners for digital broadcasting for up to three months at some television viewing support centers, in the wake of stocks running out in some home electronics shops.