Going Digital was a significant four-year programme that was responsible for driving the country's transition from analogue to digital television by the end of 2013. It touched almost every household in a way that no other programme has since the introduction of decimal currency in 1967. Viewers needed to buy equipment to make every television go digital, if they wanted to keep using it.
New Zealand went digital in four stages beginning on 30 September 2012 with Hawke’s Bay and the West Coast of the South Island and ending on 1 December 2013 with the upper North Island (north of Taupo).
Going Digital was established as a stand-alone programme in May 2010. It was administered within the Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH) but with an independent brand and profile and a clearly defined remit to complete the transition to digital television in a simple and straightforward way.
Purpose
The purpose of this post implementation review is to evaluate the Going Digital programme. This includes:
- reviewing whether the programme met its objectives
- reviewing whether the programme achieved the benefits that were expected
- comparing the programme’s financial performance against the budget
- identifying programme strengths so they can be incorporated into future projects, and
- identifying programme learnings as well as weaknesses or possible areas for improvement.
Methodology
The MCH Media Policy Team completed this review. The review included examining key documents such as Cabinet papers, regular updates and briefings to Ministers, strategic plans, communications and marketing plans, operational guidelines, issues and risks registers, findings from a pilot regional
roll-out of Going Digital, and analysis of roll-outs in subsequent regions.
Input was sought from key MCH and Going Digital personnel and from key programme stakeholders such as the Treasury and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), broadcasting sector and consumer group representatives, and creative agencies. See Appendix 1 for a full list of
those consulted.
Key Results
This document confirms the key objectives of Going Digital were achieved. These objectives were:
- to ensure New Zealanders were aware of the need to go digital (with a target of 99 per cent awareness)
- to inform New Zealanders how to go digital
- to ensure particular vulnerable and disadvantaged households were not left behind and also went digital, and
- to ensure New Zealand converted to digital television by the end of 2013 (with a target of 98 per cent of analogue households going digital in each switchover region).
- Going Digital achieved these objectives on time and significantly under budget.
Going Digital had the benefit of being able to learn from similar switchover programmes overseas. Prior to developing its programme, officials sought out international lessons learned (particularly in the UK and Australia). Going Digital also learned new lessons along the way and put these into
practice as the campaign progressed.
Going Digital also had the benefit of a ‘tail wind’ in the form of decreasing prices for large-screen digital televisions. This helped incentivise and increase the number of households that went digital on their own and, in turn, this reduced the number (and cost) of households requiring Going Digital’s
Targeted Assistance Package.
Nevertheless, the Treasury has indicated that Going Digital’s programme management was a notable success. It successfully rolled out a high-profile digital switchover programme with easy to understand messaging and with comprehensive targeted assistance. The Treasury also noted Going
Digital was extremely successful at managing a technology change affecting a large proportion of the population, with minimal disruption or complaint.
As a consequence of Going Digital, the clearance of the 700MHz band enabled the sale of analogue spectrum space and the proceeds of this exceeded expectations.