Parliament's Transport Committee will on Thursday examine the troubled transition to Cyprus' new digital television broadcasting system, following widespread disruption, complaints of excessive charges and the temporary restoration of the previous signal.
Committee chairman Sotiris Ioannou told Politis radio that the issue is a serious one, particularly for elderly people and other vulnerable groups. "Within one hour we blacked out the televisions of thousands of our fellow citizens and expected a solution to somehow emerge overnight," he said, questioning why the authorities had not first operated the old and new systems in parallel on a trial basis.
Those invited to attend the committee meeting include:
- The Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy
- The Department of Electronic Communications
- The Consumer Protection Service
- The Office of the Commissioner of Communications
- Service providers
- Private television broadcasters
The committee is expected to examine:
- The cost of the transition
- Responsibility for decisions and handling of the process
- Complaints about high charges by technicians
- Reports of unsuitable or incorrectly configured decoders being sold to consumers "If citizens and consumers were exploited through the sale of decoder boxes, that is a very serious matter," Ioannou said.
Questions over preparation
Speaking on the same programme, Politis editor Michalis Stavrou argued that the Deputy Ministry of Innovation must provide convincing explanations, particularly regarding whether it had properly assessed the public's readiness for the transition.
He pointed to Cyprus' switch from analogue to digital television in 2011, when problems also arose but were accompanied by a broader public-information campaign and did not require the country to revert temporarily to the previous system.
In the current case, he argued, officials appear to have wrongly assumed that most households had modern televisions, suitable cabling and the technical knowledge required to complete the retuning process without assistance. "The situation was not properly assessed by a ministry responsible for Digital Policy," he said.
Temporary fix, not a solution
The decision to maintain parallel transmission for three months is not viewed as a long-term solution.
Among the options under consideration are technical adjustments to the new transmission system and possible subsidies for decoder boxes for lower-income households.
According to Stavrou, the scale of the public reaction has demonstrated that television remains an important source of information and daily companionship, especially for older people.
