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IRELAND – Arqiva completes digital switchover at Belfast event
Northern Ireland’s Olympic pentathlon hero Mary Peters will turn off analogue TV services to Northern Ireland at Belfast’s Divis broadcast transmission station on 23 October.
Peters will be joined by John Cresswell, chief executive of broadcast transmission company Arqiva, at the event, which marks the final leg of the UK’s five-year, £630m digital switchover project.
In April, the Crystal Palace broadcast tower hosted a spectacular lightshow to mark the switch from analogue to digital TV services in London. Arqiva installed more than six tonnes of lighting equipment on the tower in readiness for the show. More than 200,000 watts of energy-efficient lighting – the same
wattage used to light the Eiffel Tower in Paris – illuminated the
219m tall structure.
The show culminated with a beam of light shooting up the tower
and radiating out over London, representing the invisible digital TV
signals. 
Dame Peters said: “The switchover to digital TV is a very fitting end to what has been a phenomenal year for Britain. Not only have the Olympic and Paralympic celebrations shown the British and Irish people at their very best, but it’s a reminder to the world of the outstanding reputation which British broadcasting upholds.”
Arqiva’s Cresswell added: “The completion of digital switchover in October will signal the end of what is a truly magnificent achievement for Arqiva and our Freeview partners.”
(eventmagazine.co.uk)