Between 10% and 15% of Argentine households use the services of Terrestrial Digital Television (TDA), a system that currently covers an area where 80% of the country’s population lives and that it is expected to maintain growth levels in the face of the gradual analog blackout that will begin to be implemented, which will have an end date of August 2024.
“Currently, TDA coverage is available to more than 80% of the population of our country. And the studies we have commissioned show us that the growth of the audience has been sustained since 10 years ago when its deployment began,” The General Coordinator of the Advisory Council of the Argentine Digital Television System, Gonzalo Carbajal, told Télam.
Looking ahead to the World Cup in Qatarwhich will begin on November 20, they hope to inaugurate new transmission stations and repair others such as the one in Lago Puelo, in Chubut, whose power lines were affected by the fires recorded in the Andean region.
“Right now Arsat is working against the clock in Lago Puelo to install the power lines that burned in the fires of 2020, and that neither the province nor the local energy provider fixed in time. We believe that we will be able to get there so that the region have the signal for the start of the World Cup,” said Carbajal.
“Every four years we have an event that is one of the most important television content: the Soccer World Cup. And since the State has committed to buying the rights for 32 games (including all those played by Argentina) the TDA It becomes a great opportunity to see Argentina and the World Cup in High Definition with the best quality, with the least delay and for free,” said the official.
The TDA service is free and the connection is made through the decoder incorporated in televisions manufactured in the country.
The oldest television sets need a decoder as a supplement, due to the analog system they have, which will stop working in the next 14 months.
Arsat is the company that is in charge of the infrastructure made up of the 90 Digital Transmission Stations (EDTs) with an average range of 60 kilometers radius.
In this frame, the national government allocated $400 millionthrough the Plan Connectfor “the enhancement of the transmission network that Mauricio Macri’s administration allowed to deteriorate, when he decided not to invest a single peso in its maintenance,” said Carbajal.
The official indicated that in addition to the recovery of stations such as San Rafael, in Mendoza, “we were able to start up two new transmission stations: Río Tercero (Córdoba) and Corrientes.”
“In addition, we are ready to inaugurate stations in Concepción del Uruguay and Monte Caseros, in Corrientes,” he added.
Soccer is one of the contents that allowed the TDA to assess the number of people who use this service.
“In the last Copa América we commissioned a study from Ibope to see how much of the viewing on Public TV came from digital transmissions, and the result was that 20% of the people who watched the games on that channel did so through the TDA In the final the percentage was close to 30%”. Carbajal commented.
Ibope’s dataadded the official, coincide with another report made by the CEOP consultancy, at the country level, “which shows similar values and above all sheds light on the portion of homes with analog receiversthe first objective to achieve digital reception after switching off analog broadcasts”.
In that sense Decree 156 of the national government established a schedule for the gradual analog blackout and consequent digital switch-on, which will formally end in August 2024.
Analog blackout is the name by which the cessation of analog broadcasts by television operators is known, to start transmitting only through digitized signals.
in stage 1 It is expected that all the repeater stations of Radio and Television Argentina will cease analog broadcasting.
in stage 2 stations of origin owned by licensees and authorized; and in stage 3 the rest of the stations (cooperatives, community, among others).
