Two million Brits won't be able to watch television by year 2035
Plans to switch off Freeview within the next decade could leave almost two million households without access to television.
Back in 2012 the last analogue TV signals were switched off and people watched their televisions via a digital signal, and people watched digital terrestrial television (DTT) which is known more popularly as Freeview.
However, it could be curtains for Freeview before long as more people are watching their TV via their broadband rather than a TV signal, and The Telegraph reports that a government green paper is expected to be published in the next few weeks will lay out a series of conditions that need to be met if the plug is going to be pulled on Freeview.
These include affordable superfast broadband across all of the UK so people can stream live TV without a problem, and having an interface that's easy to use no matter what platform is on.
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Freeview is a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, they've already got a replacement set up in the form of Freely which would offer pretty much the same as Freeview but come through people's broadband instead of a TV aerial.
The 2035 Freeview switch off
Under current legislation Freeview is protected until 2034 so it would seem that Brits are still several years away from having their free digital TV signals turned off.
More and more households are watching TV via Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), so it's their internet connection and not the TV signal they rely on.
Whether that means 2034 will be the last year for Freeview in the UK and from 2035 onwards everyone will have to get with the programme, as it were, remains to be seen.
The main broadcasters in the UK see it as a good option as The Guardian reports they think 2034 is a logical point to pull the plug on it as they'd be spending a lot of money maintaining a signal used by a decreasing number of households.
However, there is a campaign backed by Arqiva, which provides the infrastructure for DTT, to push this back to 2040 to give Brits more time to adapt and mean fewer households are affected.
Ofcom has said those who would be affected are 'more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and geographically in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland'.
Almost two million homes affected
Speaking of the number of households affected, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has indicated that if nothing is done towards the switchover then around 1.8 million households in the UK will still be on Freeview in its final year of operation, meaning they'd enter 2035 without a TV signal.
That's if they do nothing, which would seem a bit silly.
Around 1.1 million of those households would have an internet connection and would be ready to watch IPTV, but there would still be 700,000 dwellings that wouldn't have a way to watch TV.
Meanwhile, according to Sky if there's a proper announcement in 2027 that Freeview is on borrowed time followed by a proper campaign to get the message across that there's going to be a switchover and it'll need broadband then this figure could lower to 330,000.
Back when there was a switchover to digital TV from analogue the DCMS identified that around six percent of households in the UK were 'digital refuseniks' who didn't want to switch, but a help scheme meant the transition was largely seamless.
So if you're watching TV on a non-broadband connection it may be time to look at switching over.
Joe Harker