TV5 Network Inc. is set to start its digital terrestrial television (DTT) rollout in Metro Manila by next year, in compliance with the full digital migration by 2023.
Jane Basas, TV5 president, said the company has started building the DTT network and will begin the rollout initially in Metro Manila, then in key urban cities in the country, to comply with the full migration from analog to digital by 2023.
“We have no choice but to convert all our networks… I think the shutdown (in Metro Manila) will happen next year,” Basas said.
TV5 together with sister company Cignal TV will be awarding soon the contract for the supplier of transmission equipment and antennas for DTT to start building the network.
The analog shutdown will happen in Mega Manila by end of 2020, and then certain parts of Luzon by 2021, certain parts of Visayas and Mindanao by 2022, and all over the country by 2023.
To comply with the migration, the company was forced to actually invest, Basas said.
The full migration to digital TV and analog switch off by 2023 would mean households without set-up boxes (STB) or a TV with DTT tuner installed can no longer watch free TV channels.
With the framework of the Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting (DTTB) migration plan released in 2017, broadcasters, manufacturers and content producers are steadily beginning to realize the potential brought about by the unprecedented growth in receiver sales — TVs and STB alike.
The country is adopting the Japanese Integrated Service Digital Broadcast-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) as the standard for the DTTB service in the Philippines.
Both TV5 Network and Cignal TV are subsidiaries of MediaQuest Holdings, a media and content arm of the PLDT Group of Companies.