'Digital switchover to cost UK £1 billion'

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The cost of switching off analogue television signals could be as high as £1 billion. The figure is quoted by Broadcast magazine, having spoken to an un-named senior broadcasting source within the BBC.

The source said culture secretary Tessa Jowell had been given the estimate, which included £100m for converting analogue transmitters, while most of the remainder would need to be spent on marketing and box subsidies.

Broadcast said the final bill is still being worked on in Whitehall. Last week, Jowell put back the target switchover period to between 2007 and 2012. The target had been between 2006 and 2010.

UK media regulator Ofcom is currently drawing up draft digital broadcasting licences for commercial terrestrial broadcasters, and is expected to publish them in September. By then, it is thought, the full costs and timetable for digital switchover, will be known, and written into the new licences.

The BBC's role in driving switchover will be enshrined in its new Royal Charter, beginning in 2006.

Broadcast quoted a senior government source saying the cost of switchover depended on a number of variables. "The costs are still in flux at the moment with many going down rather than up," said the un-named source.