VANCOUVER – Late last week, word leaked out that Best Buy, one of the world’s biggest consumer electronics retailers, would no longer carry analog TV sets in its stores.
Store managers were reportedly informed earlier this month of the move in a company-wide memo.
In the U.S., the analog television cut-off date for broadcasters is February 2009, so that market is well ahead of Canada when it comes to digital, or high definition television. Broadcasters in markets of any size, Stateside, have already made the switch to digital broadcasting because they have to return their analog spectrum to the U.S. government in just over a year.
In Canada, the CRTC set a deadline of August 31, 2011 for all-digital broadcasting – but digital/HD broadcasting in markets beyond just our few largest markets is non-existent. Analog still rules here.
According to a Best Buy spokeswoman, the Canadian portion of the chain (which also owns Future Shop) has no intention of removing analog sets from the store shelves.
“In Canada, we will definitely continue to offer customers televisions that have analog signal capability as long as there is a demand in the market for them,” said the Heather Seabrook.
“It’s a smaller portion of what consumers are looking for these days, but we will continue to carry ‘tube TVs’.”
– Greg O’Brien
