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sbiddle:Jaxson: Yeah the switch off will come, but probably towards say 2012 sort of thing.
ASO will not happen in 2012. This seems to be a continually repeated piece of misinformation.
Agreed, 2012 seems way to soon for the government to kill analogue broadcasts, and as lchiu7 says, there's no huge motivation to end it soon. This just reaffirms what I was saying above, in that freeview is at this stage a marketing consortium with an alternative improved broadcast platform, not simply just the future of free to air broadcasts.
Those, typically in rural areas, who had sky's base digital package will benefit hugely from freeviews free sat service. -heck they can even use the same dish. Anyone else who has sky for sports/movies can not consider freeview as a viable cheap replacement. Freeviews advertising could be seen suggest that it is, and the answers from freeview to our questions reinforced that they are in competition with sky.
That said, the HD service is great. It's in widescreen for a start, no ghosting etc like the old analogue broadcast could be prone to, and you get some other channels. Plus some shows are in HD and 5.1 so it really is a good upgrade regardless, especially if you have a newer flat panel tv.
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