Get with the programme

If there’s anything likely to elicit furious complaints from tenants, it’s repairs. So imagine trying to pacify an estate’s worth of tenants who can’t get their TVs to work. Sounds like a nightmare? It could be reality for some housing officers within three years.

By 2012, analogue TV transmissions will cease and only digital will be available – people who don’t have digital receivers will be left sitting in front of blank screens.

In fact, the government is pushing for a complete switchover by 2010 and in some regions the change will be as early as 2007, although it has not yet been decided which areas will be changed over first.

For individual households, dealing with the change will be fairly simple: they just have to decide whether they want terrestrial, satellite or cable and get a set-top box to decode the digital signal, possibly with a subscription, depending on the service they’ve chosen.

But things are much more complicated for those who live in homes with communal aerials, such as flats or houses in multiple occupation. The government estimates that some 4 million homes are serviced by communal systems, and many of these are likely to be renting from councils or housing associations. Social housing landlords will be responsible for making sure their tenants switch, but there is no government funding available for these conversions.

Although 53% of UK households have already got digital TV, that still leaves half the population using analogue and there is no accurate information on the number of landlords that have switched over.

“People who have not already switched to digital need to start preparing today so that they can continue to receive television when the analogue signal is switched off,” says Barry Cox, deputy chairman of Channel 4 and chairman of the Digital Television Stakeholders Group. “The situation for landlords is particularly complex, and they will need to take action to prevent tenants being faced with blank television screens in the future.”

It will be housing management and support staff who will have to explain the changes to tenants, but those in charge of procurement will also be affected as technical expertise, which may not be available in-house, may be needed to advise on which of the three options to choose.

Cable

The first option is digital cable, which bypasses the communal aerial altogether and uses underground cabling to transmit the TV signal instead.

Doug Forbes, director of Barony Consulting, who advises landlords on the issue, says: “The advantage is that with cable you get a package with telephone or internet access and there’s minimal work involved for housing officers.

“You just encourage the tenant to take it up and the tenant pays the cable company each month.”

Cable companies are already starting to transfer to digital so housing staff’s main involvement will be consulting tenants in public meetings and follow-up letters, telephone calls and house calls to advise them of the switchover.

However, switching to cable only works in properties where cable companies already operate, and not every area has a network.

Another drawback is that cable does not include the option of just having the basic “free to air” channels (the ones for which a monthly subscription is not charged) and so viewers must pay.

Subscriptions can be up to £50 a month, which is a lot for tenants on low incomes, and although packages with fewer channels can be only a few pounds a month, that’s still a lot of money for someone on benefits.

If some tenants do not want pay services, landlords might not be able to go for this option unless they are willing to pay for it themselves.

Terrestrial

A cheaper method, for tenants at least, involves upgrading existing analogue systems to enable digital terrestrial TV services. This concept is already familiar to many as the Freeview service, which provides digital TV and radio stations plus other interactive services for a one-off fee of about £100.

The situation for landlords is very complex and they will need to take action to prevent tenants being faced with blank TV screens in future

Barry cox, Digital TV Sakeholders Group

It is reasonably inexpensive – the average cost can be £100 per household including alterations to the aerial and amplifier. But it can require new, taller aerials and may involve upgrading the system that amplifies the signal received by the aerial, although this is a relatively simple procedure that does not involve major works. Another potential disadvantage is that digital terrestrial does not offer as wide a choice of channels as cable or satellite.

Five years ago, before Glasgow council transferred its 80,000 homes to Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), it converted its tenants’ systems to digital terrestrial.

Digital terrestrial was just coming onto the scene and one digital provider, OnDigital, was looking for new clients. The cost of upgrading to digital for the council would have been £1.5m but in a unique deal with the company, Glasgow negotiated the 80,000-home upgrade at no cost.

Glasgow’s first step was to write to tenants six weeks before work began, informing them of the deal and advising know that installers would be up on rooftops and television programmes would be unavailable for an hour. Hugh McDonald, GHA project manager who was the council’s assistant chief housing officer at the time, says: “The biggest concern was that tenants didn’t want to pay – we had to reassure them that our role was to put the infrastructure in. Whether or not people took up paid-for channels was their choice. We also went to residents’ meetings twice a month to spread the word.”

The impact on staff, he adds, was that tenants had questions that needed answering, mainly about whether they would have to pay. Staff had to be fully briefed to explain the reasons for the changeover (see box), how long it would take and that the council would be paying for the infrastructure but tenants would have to pay for any subscription channels.

“The biggest challenge was maintaining neutrality, explaining we were providing access to service, not selling a product,” says McDonald. However, he found that the response from tenants was very positive once they understood that they would be getting better pictures and more choice, and that the alternative was blank screens in a few years’ time.

It took six months for installers to put in place the new equipment. As the work was done on the side or roof of the homes, there was no disruption to tenants. Tenants are now on Freeview following the collapse of OnDigital.

The London borough of Barking & Dagenham also chose digital terrestrial for its 13,700 properties. But a historical installation agreement meant communal aerials belonged to a contractor, Blick UK, and changing them to digital would have meant buying them back and upgrading them at a cost of up to £2m.

The solution, says Maryam Collard, senior business officer in the council’s housing business department, was to negotiate a deal with the contractors: “We offered them a 10-year maintenance contract for £190,000 a year and they upgraded to digital at no cost.”

The only charges passed onto tenants are an annual £14 each to leaseholders and £15.60 to tenants, which is reimbursed to those on housing benefit. Like Glasgow, Barking & Dagenham gave tenants six weeks’ notice by letter of the charges and the work. The work began in June this year and will be completed in October.

Integrated reception

The third solution – the most high-tech and the one involving the most work and expense – is to install an integrated reception system. This gives tenants a choice of free or paid-for digital TV from terrestrial or satellite and leaves the door open for other services such as broadband. But it must be installed from scratch and this can cost more than £300 a household. “New build and terraced properties are ideal for IRS,” explains Forbes, “because it’s a clean slate.” The problem with installing IRS in tower blocks is the sheer scale of the task involved which includes replacing all aerials and adding a communal satellite dish and a new outlet socket in the wall of each household.

Glasgow Housing Association, which now owns the city’s ex-council stock, has been upgrading 10,000 of its homes to integrated reception systems over the past two years. This has meant hiring installers. McDonald says: “We wanted to do it to ensure future capacity such as internet access, so we began a programme of installation whenever we did major works on blocks.”

The average cost has been a relatively cheap £100 for each household, because the work was an upgrade from recently installed digital terrestrial, and was met by GHA’s capital works budget. It hopes to upgrade more homes in future.

Paying for it

Although there is no government grant to help social landlords switch to digital, there are deals to be struck by those canny enough to negotiate with private companies, as GHA and Barking found. And the good news is that once analogue has been replaced by digital, maintenance costs should fall. Some councils have expensive maintenance contracts of around £250,000 a year because of the number of analogue system failures but the Department of Trade and Industry estimates the bill can be cut to an eighth of its cost once more reliable digital systems are in place.

Landlords that have not yet turned their attention to the switchover should be careful not to get caught out. Housing managers should be checking now when their region is due to switch over and researching which installers are available. Otherwise, if left to the last minute, demand for installers could outstrip supply and it might be impossible to get even a basic upgrade in time.

“My biggest advice is to take every opportunity to upgrade communal aerials for digital capacity whenever you do any major works,” says GHA’s McDonald. “Thinking ahead is key.”