A press conference is held in Da Nang city to announce stopping television programme with analog broadcast signal. VNS Photo Cong Thanh

DA NANG (Biz Hub) — The central city has completely switched off analogue signals, making it the first city in Viet Nam and ASEAN to fully switch to digitalisation of television programmes.

Head of Radio Frequency Agency Doan Quang Hoan announced this at a press conference in the city yesterday.

He said 5,644 poor households in the city and 11,408 poor households in northern Quang Nam Province (including Hoi An, Dien Ban township and Dai Loc and Duy Xuyen districts) have received set-top boxes for the digitalisation process.

"Da Nang is the first city in Viet Nam and ASEAN to complete the process of digitalisation of television programmes," Hoan said.

"The programme helps viewers to watch more TV channels on a frequency with high-definition images than the old technology. We have a fund from the Fund for Public Telecommunication Service to support poor consumers in the second stage in 26 provinces in 2016, before completing the programme in 2020," he said.

The central city has given nearly VND500,000 to poor people to buy set-top boxes for digital TV programmes.

The Radio Frequency Agency also said Da Nang would stop broadcasting television programmes with analogue signals from November 1.

The move follows the government's approval last year of a nationwide analogue-to-digital migration plan, which will see the country's television stations broadcasting all their content in the digital format by 2020.

Two years ago, Da Nang Radio and Television station became the first station outside a large metropolitan area to use satellite services for live broadcasts. —VNS