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| Wednesday, 11 February 2004 |
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by Ranil Wijayapala and Bernard Perera Rupavahini the leading television network in the country plans to go high tech in keeping with the latest trends in the world as it celebrates its 22nd anniversary this month, Director General of the Ruapavahini Corporation Nishantha Ranatunga said yesterday. Briefing the press on its latest achievements and future programmes, the Director General said Rupavahini will be the first television network in Sri Lanka to telecast its programmes using latest digital technology. The Rupavahini will also launch an international channel to cater expatriate Sri Lankan community within the next one and half months fulfilling a long felt need, he said. It expects to introduce this latest technology in step by step process considering the cost, the television subscribers have to bear when using this latest technology. As the first step, the Rupavahini tower at Independence Square, will cover a 40 kilometre radius from Colombo and it will be expanded to cover the whole island by the year 2010. "We are using the digital system parallel to the analogue system since people will have to bear an additional cost to have a set top box to convert digital system to analogue system to their analogue system TVs", speaking more about this system Director Engineering Upali Arambawela said. He was hopeful that the prices of 'set top boxes' to use this latest technology will drastically come down in the coming years as India has also embarked on telecasting programs using digital technology. In addition to that Rupavahini also plans to provide better viewing for its subscribers after setting up five more re-transmission centres in Kalutara district and four others in Matale, Hunnasgiriya, Medagama and Mannar. Rupavahini has earned a record annual income of Rs. 1,152 million during the year 2003. The viewership of the Rupavahini and Eye channel has also increased from 32 per cent to 42 per cent during the last year. |
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