Brussels, 08/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - On behalf of the European Commission's DG Communication, the European Audiovisual Observatory has published recent data on the European television market. The report takes stock of the deployment of digital terrestrial television (DTT) as the 2012 deadline is approaching for the complete close-down of analogue television. The statistics are available on the MAVISE database, which provides information on the markets of the EU and two candidate countries, Croatia and Turkey.
The statistics show that 15 member states have already completed the transition to digital transmission (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland). In total, 20 countries will have completed it by the end of 2011 (Cyprus, France, Iceland, Malta and the Czech Republic will join the group), 16 of which are EU countries. Only two countries of the EU, Bulgaria and Romania, have not yet launched DTT services. The total number of channels broadcast on DTT networks is now nearly 1,800 (compared to 1,500 in October 2010). This figure includes a high number of local channels, although local/regional channels are represented on DTT platforms in just 12 countries of the EU. These figures are particularly high in Italy, Spain and Denmark. The number of national and international channels available to households receiving DTT (total across all platforms) has risen to over 820 in June 2011, as against 500 in April 2009. This figure includes a large number of channels which appear on the DTT channels of more than one country and include many pan-European channels. In the EU, the number of channels available at national level varies considerably from one country to another. The highest numbers are to be found in Italy (90) and the fewest in Ireland and Portugal (just a handful), where DTT was not launched until recently. The study also shows that: (1) the number of operators continues to rise in parallel to progress with the roll-out of DTT; (2) chargeable DTT services are available in 14 countries of the EU (Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Sweden); (3) the public channels still hold a major position on the free DTT channels (one third of the channels are public ones), but, logically, less on the platforms which charge; (4) high-definition channels are available by DTT in 13 countries of the EU (compared to 8 in October 2010): (Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, United Kingdom and Sweden). (I.L./transl.fl)