A new DAB Digital Radio transmitter is set to bring new services to 40,000 people in Melrose, Galashiels and Hawick area of the Scottish Borders. The new transmitter will be located at Selkirk and is hoped to be in service by the start of winter 2007.
Speaking at a digital forum in Melrose on Friday, the BBC's Chief Operating Officer, Caroline Thomson, announced the BBC's plans and said: "For many years, our digital radio coverage in Scotland and England has been separated. It's good news that we're now able to join up the two nations."
The BBC has also announced its intention to commission a transmitter to bring DAB digital radio to listeners on the opposite side of the country — in the towns of Whitehaven and Workington in Cumbria. This area has been selected by the Government to be the location of the switchover flagship project and will be the first to completely switched over to digital television in October of this year.
Although the BBC's analogue radio services will continue after digital switchover, the new transmitter will allow listeners in the area to go completely digital if they choose to: watching digital television and listening to DAB digital radio.
It is hoped to bring the transmitter on stream in the late autumn.
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