last issue of Digita, the Freeview consortium outlines the audiovisual landscape in Europe, indicating the essential steps to digital terrestrial.
The French group Lagardere Active has announced the sale, the Bolloré Group, free DTT channel Virgin 17 for a figure of around 70 million €.
Present since the launch of DTT under the name "Europe 2 TV, Virgin 17 is a music channel aimed primarily at 15-34 year range. According to figures released by Médiamétrie, in 2009 the channel has in 2009 an audience share of 0.7% of total TV universe and 1, 7% from the families who have access to digital television by Freeview only.
The transaction between Bolloré and Lagardère follows a few months that led by AB Groupe TF1 to acquire 100% and 80% TMC NT1, both mini-general of the Freeview channels.
According to the latest CSA Regulatory Authority, at the end of 2009, 78.4% of French TV households equipped with digital TV was on at least one television set (all platforms considered). Only 12.9% of families were totally dependent on analogue terrestrial reception. The DTT is present at end of year in about 12.9 million households, representing 48.3% of total television households.
In recent days, has been successfully completed the switch-off in the region of Lower Normandy, which involved about 1.5 million inhabitants. At midnight on 8 March were in fact cut off analogue broadcasting by the three major systems of the region (Caen - Mont Pincon, Mortain - Grand Fontaine, d'Alencon Amain), reactivated the next morning along with 19 other plants involved. Lower Normandy is the second region to complete the transition, after the Alsace (1.8 million) on February 2 last year.
The next regions will be the countries of the Loire (18 May) and Britain (June 8). Already in late 2009, the penetration of digital TV (all platforms) in the two regions at 81, 83 and 7%, 6%, respectively.
In Spain, Sogecable (Grupo Prisa), who runs the Pay-TV satellite platform DigitalPlus English, is considering for the September launch of a Pay-TV platform Freeview. Even Mediapro, which already operates the only channel DTT pay this today (Gol TV), is planning to expand its offering to pay in the weeks following the switch-off.
On April 2, has run closed the third and final phase of the national plan transition, which led Spain to be fully digitized. Meanwhile, the penetration of DTT on the total number of households has reached the end of February 83, 6%. Sales of DTT receivers in January reached a historical record, with about 1.6 million units sold. According to some estimates, only in the last two weeks before the switch-off could be sold around 2 million units. The DTT audience share has meanwhile reached 67.4% in the third week of March.
In the UK, Freesat, the free satellite platform complements the TDT operated in a joint venture between the BBC and ITV, has reached 1 million users at the end of 2009, which is about 18 months after launch.
In the last three months of last year, the families of Freesat users grew by 200 thousand units.
According to data reported by the management of the platform, about 40% of users of Freesat is the first consists of households subscribing to pay-TV offering satellite-based BSkyB.
Five loses license for a HD channel on Freeview. The Authority of the British communications regulator Ofcom has decided not to reserve more in Channel Five (RTL Group), the transmission capacity reserved for a channel in High Definition on Freeview. Five, which had been provisionally awarded a license in June 2009, it would not have missed some of the constraints imposed by Ofcom, including the notification of the date of the official launch and a draft schedule. Five still intends to re-apply next year for the award of an HD channel on Freeview. The capacity reserved for the first Five HD is now available to the BBC.
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