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Research organisation Research and Markets has come out with a
report Digital Terrestrial TV: Prospects in the Enlarged European
Union (EU).
Italy is expected to be the largest single DTT market in Europe
by 2009, with nearly 13 million DTT households, followed by the
UK and Germany.
The report reveals that the UK will remain the EU country with
the highest overall level of digitalisation. However its forecast
digitalisation rate by 2009 (86 per cent) will be some way short
of the British government's target for analogue switch-off (95 per
cent).
Other countries expected strong digital growth over the period
are Finland (85 per cent), Italy (83 per cent) and Spain (77 per
cent). By contrast, Greece is expected to have digital penetration
of less than 10 per cent by 2009.
The report went on to note that digitalisation of Europe's cable
networks will continue to be hindered by the high price differentials
between analogue and digital subscriptions.
The report stated that DTT services had been introduced in seven
EU countries by the end of last year. Meanwhile, Germany has become
the first country in Europe to completely phase out analogue terrestrial
services in a number of areas.
The most popular and thus far, in terms of subscriber growth most
successful DTT product has utilised the free-to-air (FTA) model.
The UK and more recently Finland and Italy have all experienced
rapid growth in take-up. Around one million UK households switching
to DTT in the fourth quarter of 2003 alone.
By contrast, DTT models incorporating pay TV have generally struggled.
The most notable is ITV Digital in the UK. This is has been due
to competition from other pay TV providers in their market. Indeed,
the failure of ITV Digital has led to other European countries revising
their plans. An increasing number seem set to base their plans around
a substantial core of FTA services.
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