Online-only TV could be brought in with digital lessons for pensioners

Pensioners could get training in how to watch TV over the internet under Government plans to help people resistant to the shift to online-only viewing.

A major support package is needed if the ministers are to meet a favoured target date of 2034 to switch off digital terrestrial TV (DTT) signals, or Freeview, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said in a policy proposal this week.

The green paper invites industry views on two timelines for switching off DTT and moving to online-only TV – either in 2034 or a decade later. Ministers say it will be uneconomic to retain DTT after the 2040s once online TV is universally available.

Advocacy groups for the elderly, disabled and low-income fear some viewers will find themselves disconnected from TV, a vital conduit for news and information, if they find the technology confusing or are unable to afford new broadband connections.

A nationwide switchover plan would see those with “low digital skills”, such as the elderly and disabled, given “hands-on support” to help them use streaming platforms for the first time.

Although the Government estimates that only 220,000 households will be left without broadband connection by 2034, it said it must ensure that “everyone that wants to is able to access television in their home – no one is left behind.”

Media minister Ian Murray said the Government would use the successful switch from analogue to digital TV in the UK between 2007 and 2012 as a blueprint.

A nationwide scheme involving volunteers, charities and community organisations, carrying out installations and demonstrating how to use the new technology to help people switch over to digital TV, targeted those on benefits and allowances, and helped about one million people at the time.

The Government would send out a similar volunteer army, and this time, the support offered “should recognise that different audiences require different levels of help, from simple reassurance and guidance through to more hands-on support,” the green paper said.

“It should reflect audience needs, including those most likely to face barriers, such as unconnected or under-connected households, older people, people with disabilities, and others with low digital confidence or skills.”

The Government said it could also offer training programmes to help improve people’s digital skills as they move to online-only TV.

The minister urged TV manufacturers to market a range of “retro” vintage sets which can be internet-enabled, to encourage the doubters.

Murray told The i Paper: “If people want their televisions to look like they did in the 1960s, with just three channels, and they want to be able to dial through on just those three channels, we can mould the technology to make it look just like that.

“You can create a product that helps people through that transition because TV is so iconic in people’s homes.”

Low-cost broadband could also be made available to those on low incomes who fear they cannot afford the contracts for high-speed connections – which can cost up to £300 a year – to watch TV they currently receive for free through an aerial, the green paper said.

In his pitch for people yet to make the leap to broadband, Murray said there would be “massive benefits” such as the ability to book medical appointments and connect with family members.

But Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, the group representing older people, said the help scheme and calls for “retro TVs” were distractions from “the main weakness of this policy: that everyone will be forced to use superfast broadband in order to keep watching TV, whether they like it or not.”

Even a “mass programme of digital training” would not help the “millions of very old people who will never be able to reboot a router or reset their TV because of physical or mental constraints,” he said.

The green paper said UK broadcasters – which are backing a Freeview switch-off because it will save them millions of pounds in programme distribution costs – should also help people make the streaming leap by simplifying the design of their TV apps and making them easier to use.

The Digital TV Group, a body representing the UK’s broadcasters which has produced papers informing the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) plan, has developed a prototype for an “intuitive” radically simplified streaming page, dispensing with “cluttered menus”.

Allowing users to search for channels with their voice instead of scrolling a lengthy programme guide and “logical channel numbering” are elements of the group’s “TV Simple Screen” proposal.

Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO of Digital TV Group, said: “The transition to Internet Protocol-delivered television should not be about asking viewers to adapt to technology. It should be about designing technology around viewers.

“If we are serious about leaving no one behind, the systems we build must feel familiar, simple and trusted for everyone, whatever their age, confidence or technical ability.”

The BBC is “actively exploring designs for a radically simplified user interface, specifically designed to help those currently underserved by digital services. This could take the form of a low-cost streaming stick that the BBC could help promote and distribute,” the green paper said.

The BBC said it was working with the TV industry on “really simple user-interfaces”, like Freely, the streaming equivalent of Freeview, to “make the transition as easy as possible.”

A DCMS source said: “No decisions have yet been made on what a support package would include. But the government will draw on the experience of the last digital switchover in 2012.”

They added that the Government “will be working with industry to ensure that nobody is left behind.”