The Colombian government plans that with the entry into operation of Digital Terrestrial Television, coverage will be extended to places where television does not reach today.
Ana Maria Restrepo
When we talk about the digital divide, we always think of the Internet, of the lack of connection of some municipalities, villages and neighborhoods, but we do not think that this digital divide starts from a social gap, from the inequality between rich and poor that few governments are able to "medium" mitigate.
Starting from the point of the social gap, we must remember that before the Internet, the medium that most descrestaba and the most important was television, and the Internet displaced it, but now with the change to DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) it will be able to recover a place in many homes, in addition to being able to reach others where it has never done so.
In almost every home there is a tv, before a pc and the possibilities that DTT will offer will allow thousands of people to even have interactive television.
While it is true that with the change to digital we will all have to adjust to it and for many people, especially of limited resources, it will be complicated by the cost, it is also true that this will open a world of possibilities that they did not have before.
According to what was mentioned by Mauricio Samudio Lizcano, Commissioner of Television of Colombia, in the talk on DTT of the National Television Commission, CNTV, at the Pontifical Bolivarian University of Medellín, TV reaches all Colombian homes and televisions occupy the second place within the most attractive appliances for purchase after stoves.
This implies that no matter how much Internet and computers we have, televisions will not be so easily replaceable, so journalists will now have to think about creating digital content for DTT.
However, it is worth asking, will the fact that DTT reaches more households in the country and that it is public, help to reduce the social gap? I do not know what the answer is, because I think that although it will reach more places, for this to be so each household must have a receiving antenna and an encoder that allows the signal to reach the analog television and if many people do not have even to buy a tv, will they have to buy these systems?
In Colombia, regional channels reach 78% of the population, local channels 45%, cable or satellite channels 65%, national private channels 86% and national public channels 92%, these indicators show that the opportunity to create new content to fulfill a social and responsible function occurs in private channels, audiences and regional, based on the assumption that this type of TV is multichannel, which will give a large amount of content and segmented audiences.
Although my strength is not television, and here I get a little out of the purpose of this text or the final task, if I consider it vital to know what is happening in the country and because as journalists we can at any time be in this medium.
The segmentation of audiences and the offer of content will facilitate social inclusion processes through interactive DTT technologies that will be given in parallel to the information.
Samudio also explains that the operators will be able to organize the information and distribute it through the TV to those who need it or want it so that we as journalists could create campaigns, programs or educational, fun and entertaining sections through which young people who do not have access to another type of education or systems can learn through DTT, it is more useful to reinforce educational actions in those schools or colleges where learning does not occur in the best way.
DTT will allow parents to control what their children see so that we could generate children's and adolescent content that should not be controlled or censored, in addition to creating programs for multiple viewers such as documentaries, reports or series that show the world panorama.
It should be noted that DTT will also allow access to the Internet but in a single way and little interactive. Likewise, this type of TV will facilitate inclusion through greater access to information, in addition to presenting again the non-formal education courses that previously predominated in the radio.
I do not know what the creation of content will be like in terms of access to the Internet, but I am sure that those of us who work in this area will be able to generate more than one program that allows inclusion, education and healthy recreation.
