The small hamlet of Whitehaven is the first place in the UK to undergo the switchover from analogue to digital TV broadcasts.

Whitehaven, in Cumbria, will still receive analogue TV broadcasts until November 14, when the area’s transition to digital signals will be completed.

The switch to digital TV for the rest of the UK is set to finish by 2012, when analogue broadcasts will be terminated. Residents in the UK will require Freeview, satellite or broadband to continue to watch TV.

According to UK media watchdog Ofcom, around 84 per cent of British households are equipped for digital TV.

The British Government will provide free receivers for the switchover to the disabled, partially sighted and those less well-off under a £600m plan.

Up until now, Whitehaven’s claim to fame was the Sellafield nuclear power plant.

Digital UK, the organisation in charge of Britain’s switchover, believes the town was a perfect site to launch the change.

“Whitehaven was chosen primarily because it’s a discrete area for broadcasting signals,” Digital UK’s Jon Steele told the BBC.

“Changing the signals here to digital won’t interfere with neighbouring areas.

“It’s also an area where people currently aren’t receiving digital TV through a terrestrial aerial so it was delivering something that this community has been deprived of,” he added.

See also Digital TV: Your Electronics Weekly guide.