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| Yes | 33% | 208 votes | Total: 640 votes | |
| No | 67% | 432 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesI have voted yes for this debate but I don't think it is a matter of forcing people to have only digital TV but more of choosing to stay with analogue until the signal is turned off and ceasing to watch any type of TV transmission.
Evolution is a force of nature which applies just as strongly to technology as it does to biological forms of life. Change is hard to cope with but once we have adopted a new idea or product we begin to wonder how we managed to live without it.
I am sure we had the same arguments when moving from gas lamps to electric lamps or horse driven carriages to early forms of the motor vehicle, yet try to imagine life without these technological advances. Imagine if the people who wanted to remain with black and white TV rather than adopt the newer and more expensive colour version had won the argument.
If people did choose to stay with analogue they would find that manufacturers would cease making products for this technology having moved onto digital as that would generate a bigger income for them.Eventually the anologue equipment would breakdown and you would be unable to get it fixed as there would be no support from the manufacturers who will have been forced to move onto digital by consumer demand and the need to make profits from the newest technologies available.Even if your equipment didn't breakdown nobody would be transmitting anything on the analogue system as they would have moved over to Digital which offers a much more flexible and better service.It would be too expensive for them to have transmission equipment for both analogue and digital TV signals.
Just like the horse drawn carriage, analogue TV has been developed as far as it can be and needs to be evolved into a more modern and useful tool which comes to us in the format of digital TV. Digital offers us better sound and clarity, interactive services and less degradation of the TV signal allowing more people to receive the TV signal even in the remotest of areas.
Extra cost is probably the biggest concern and I do believe that the government should subsidise those less able to afford the costs placed upon them by the switch. If they do intend to sell off the bandwidth they can easily afford to help those most vulnerable members of society to benefit foot the digital technology.
Digital TV will also free up bandwidth allowing it to be used to develop better wireless broadband and give us more access to wire-free technologies. So it isn't a matter of forcing people but saying to them accept change or stay with your horse drawn carriage and make do.
Learn more about this author, Paul Henshaw.
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No
No! As is all too often the case, debates can be ill-worded and debaters then argue past each other with their own different interpretations of the question. Since it's for me a self-evident truth that we have the right to liberty, we have the right, at the very least, to NO TV. Not only is that the case, we actually also have the "right" to a dysfunctional TV if we blindly continue to operate our TV sets when no-one is transmitting a compatible signal. If you agree we have those rights, you can't agree that anyone should be FORCED to do anything with their TV.
If we can accept the foregoing, then the debate as framed, clearly cannot be argued coherently on the "Yes" side.
"OK", you say, "well, the debate proposition was never meant to be interpreted in such a draconian fashion" and I'm inclined to agree, but let's be more rigorous shall we? So, now I'll argue the more appropriate question which would be:
"Should we be required to adopt digital TV reception equipment if we remain interested in watching TV?"
Well, if you put it like that. . .er, No again!
The core principal here is that in the onward march of society, conventions and standards do need to be evolved and enhanced. Yet, rarely, if ever have assets purchased by society's members, had their obsolescence mandated through an act of legislation. True, economic and free market forces could often be relied upon to do just that but it is not the role of government to require it.
Consider the humble radio. The first commercial radios used amplitude modulated (AM) frequencies which became the norm. Later these were added to by frequency modulated signals which are radically different, to give rise to FM reception. The market determined that FM'shad higher quality and so we had AM/FM but few FM-only radios. Both the AM and FM bands were regulated so that radio manufacturers and transmitting stations could manage risk appropriately with their investments but at no time did government take the posture of ruling out a technology. So, lo and behold, my modern car radio and my home reception equipment function perfectly well and we use both bands with nary a concern. Not only that, digital radio cometh and I'm sure I'll be able to replace my radio receiver with a set supporting all forms of transmission when I want to.
Now, I should add that I'd have no objection to the dynamics of free markets (yes, even in today's battered market environment) acheiving what the government seeks to legislate. In short, if the economics of transmitting in analogue and digital formats simultaneously don't work out, then we should expect to see broadcasters, one by one, deciding to suspend making such transmissions. That would be too bad for the die-hards, but just fine by me. Obsolescence is not, in and of itself, to be shunned. Just try to find a buggy showroom anywhere nearby.
Now I hear the "higher-collective-c ost" theorists say that we'll all bear the burden of higher costs as long as broadcasters transmit in both analogue and digital formats. Yes, indeed we will, which is what a society is all about. We ought never to be dumping on those less fortunate to require them to toss the products they paid for simply to meet an imputed collective will to spend less for services. All of health and automobile insurance operates on this principle and we accept it instead of tossing the "harder to insure" people out of the insurance pool.
Again, the market would quite adequately take care of this issue and if costs truly became unbearable, then the cable and satellite people would be offering incentives to switch instead of hiding behind the government and letting it do their dirty work for them.
"But the government needs those frequencies" you say. Again, too bad. Let them wait until the last broadcaster stops analogue transmission and let them (as is already the case) not grant new licenses to transmit in these wavebands. They won't have to wait long if market forces work as they should.
All of the above notwithstanding, I think the cable TV people at least are doing an admirable job by making sure they insulate the "old TV" crowd from the forthcoming legislation's effects and they clearly have taken the "No" side of this argument to heart. Good for them.
Learn more about this author, Salahuddin Khan.
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