Digital TV from next year

The government has yesterday decided to introduce DVB-T transmissions from the next year. Initially this will consist of converting Rupavahini & ITN to convert to digital transmissions. We believe that Analog and digital transmissions have to be carried out in parallel in because many a greater percentage of the television sets in the country do not support digital reception. The government should also consider subsidising the digital television receivers in order to make sure that when analog transmissions are switched off, no one is left without a picture on their television screens.

This is good step forward for our tiny island nation and once the first DVB-T transmissions start taking place next year, a deadline should be in place to switch off all analog transmissions. The government could build digital television transmitters and get the private channels to broadcast through them until they are able to build their own infrastructure.

The government should also look urgently at implementing DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) for radio transmissions since we have FM channels mushrooming all over sri lanka.

DVB-T contains various features such as interactivity as well as additional content that could be delivered to the viewers screen such as EPG, ect.

Source : The Daily News 28th Aug 2009 - DVB-T technology for TV transmission

Art launches "Cartoon Network" programming block

English language television channel "Art" has launched a one hour daily programming block of Cartoon Network programming. The block which airs from 4:30pm to 5:30pm on a daily basis will feature several popular cartoons. I addition on weekends the channel will air programmes such as "Ben 10" from the Cartoon Network stable. The is the second time "Art" got into a venture with Cartoon Network since several years ago they were telecasting Cartoon Network programming on an hourly basis daily.

We hope that this venture will be a long standing venture unlike the first one.

Cartoon Network India as well as Cartoon Network Asia are available on leading pay television platforms in Sri Lanka.

Source : Indiantelevision.com : Cartoon Network partners with Sri Lanka's Art Television

KISS launches

Sri Lanka's latest radio channel KISS FM launched officially today at about 10:10am after several weeks of testing.

The channel is operating on 89.8 FM. The quality of the transmission has improved over the last few weeks however the channel is still not clear in certain areas around colombo. We hope that KISS engineers take steps to improve this situation.

We wish the management and staff of KISS all the best as they launch this channel.

KISS Website : http://www.kiss898.com/
KISS on Facebook : http://kiss898.com/facebook/