Brazil to move final analogue switchover to 2018

BRASILIA — Brazil’s Ministério das Comunicações has announced that it has updated its plan for analogue television shut down in the country. The schedule will now begin in March 2015 and end in 2018. A decree to this effect will be published in the next few days.

The original plan was that the shutdown of the analogue service and the migration to fully digital would occur in 2016.

The migration to digital is expected to begin with the major cities starting with Brasília in March 2015, followed by São Paulo in April and Rio de Janeiro in May.

One reason for the new plan is to spread the demand for new receivers over a longer period in order to avoid shortages of set-top boxes and televisions.