Thousands of people are still not ready for the first phase of Britain’s digital switchover in the northern town of Whitehaven, despite a huge publicity campaign. Digital UK, the body overseeing the switch-off of the analogue TV signal, said that up to 20 per cent of local households – around 5,000 – had not yet bought the set-top box required to receive digital channels.

On October 17th, viewers in Whitehaven who do not have digital services such as Freeview or Sky will lose BBC2 as the first group of digital channels becomes available. Four weeks later the remaining analogue channels will also be switched off. The rest of the country will follow in a rolling programme to 2012.

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