The Finnish transport and telecommunications ministry has said that it is prepared to grant cable operators an extension if they are unable to upgrade all their subscribers to digital TV.
The ministry said that it would allow digital signals to be converted back to analogue until February 2008 if less than 85% of cable households had acquired a digital converter.
The proposal is dependent on the agreement of the broadcasters, leading to disagreement at the public broadcaster YLE, with two senior executives taking opposing positions. YLE chairman Hannu Olkinuora said the broadcaster would only be prepared to allow the conversion if all of its digital channels were included. However, Mika Lintilä the outgoing chairman of YLE’s administrative council said the broadcaster would not allow the analogue retransmission of digital channels.
Finland has long since established August 31, 2007 and the date for analogue switch off to be completed.
