Poverty keeps 17 million Mexicans from digital TV


Details

Juan Fernandez Gonzalez

| 24 October 2015





Just two months before Mexico's analogue switch-off is due to take place, between 12.7 and 17.3 million people won't be able to get digital TV at home because they can't afford the technology.


In Monterrey, where analogue TV has already been switched off, over half a million people – between 10.5% and 14.3% of the population – are not receiving any free-to-air (FTA) TV, despite it being one of Mexico's richest areas and the city with the highest digitalisation.

The figures are pointed out in a report by The Competitive Intelligence Unit and support the industrial and political voices claiming for a one-year delay in the switch-off.

In some regions of Mexico, the situation is even more complicated. “In cities with poverty rates much higher than the national average, like Chiapas, in which 76% of the population is poor, between 42% and 60% won't get the DTT signal,” explained the report.

This structural issue is not the only one in DTT's future across Mexico. According to the report, only one in 10 TV signals have changed from analogue to digital.

These figures contradict some optimistic reports published lately, pointing out that Mexican DTT coverage was already at 85%. However, Mexico seems to be, by far, Latin America's country with the most advanced digital TV deployment.

The analogue switch-off is scheduled for 31 December, but it looks like a political agreement is near in order to delay the process by a year.