About two-thirds of Japanese polled do not know that the current analog TV broadcasts will end in 2011 and be replaced by terrestrial digital services, a communications ministry survey showed Friday.
The nationwide survey, conducted in March on 4,006 people aged 15 to 79, said 32.1 percent of them were aware of the end of analog broadcasts as of March 31.
Although the figure marks a sharp rise from the 9.2 percent in the previous survey carried out a year earlier, an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said, "We need to make more efforts to publicize the change."
NHK and commercial TV stations are jointly trying hard to keep TV viewers informed about the end of analog broadcasting set for July 24, 2011. For example, they have put notices on TVs receivers for analog broadcasts that are on sale at appliance stores across the country.