Portugal, Nordic nations will be first to achieve complete digital television conversion, says report

While the growth of digital and interactive television in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain slows, circumstances favor Portugal and the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden to be the first to complete nationwide switchover from analog to digital TV service, a recent study says.


According to “Digital and Interactive TV Markets: Service development and uptake to 2007,” a report from market research firm Datamonitor, Portugal and the Nordic nations will become entirely digital by 2010, attaining full-digital conversion before nations that pioneered digital television.

According to “Digital and Interactive TV Markets: Service development and uptake to 2007,” a report from market research firm Datamonitor, Portugal and the Nordic nations will become entirely digital by 2010, attaining full-digital conversion before nations that pioneered digital television.

For example, in the United Kingdom as digital television begins developing beyond “its satellite pay-TV roots,” the report asserts, the adoption of digital television technology on the part of viewers will slow down.

According to the report, the re-launch of the Freeview digital terrestrial television service on the heels of the collapse of pay-TV operator ITV Digital, puts the United Kingdom “at the forefront of developments in digital TV.”

Freeview offers non-pay digital television. Its business model centers on the sale of low-cost set-top boxes to receive free digital television service. Datamonitor says, “it (Freeview) is able to expand the interest in digital TV considerably, without posing a major threat to digital satellite or cable; indeed in the longer term Freeview may act as a stepping-stone to pay-TV services.”

The continued strong acceptance of Freeview, the report says, will result in 72 percent of U.K. households receiving digital television by the end of 2007, up from 39 percent at the end of last year.

“This will mean that the UK will remain Europe’s largest digital TV market,” it says, “however developments elsewhere will see the UK fall behind in the race to analog switch-off.”

The report also contends that digital television will develop rapidly in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Portugal. The relatively small size of each market as well as “a good balance” among cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcast services place those markets at the head of the list of European nations to be first in an all-digital television world.

“Digital migration on satellite is likely to be completed within three years in the Nordics, while satellite is already a digital-only platform in Portugal, and analog switch-off on terrestrial should also occur in all five markets before 2007, leaving analog services only on cable,” Datamonitor predicts. Conversion to digital cable service once satellite and terrestrial broadcast analog service cease will round out the changeover making the Nordic nations and Portugal “Europe’s first entirely digital broadcast markets before 2010.”

For more information, please visit www.datamonitor.com and www.freeview.co.uk.

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