France is considering putting together a second DTH option for its 18 free-to-air DTT channels. So far, the bouquet is only available on the Astra satellite at 19 degrees East via the TNTSat service operated by Canal+.
In the recently published report “2012 Digital France”, secretary of state Eric Besson announced plans to set up a second offer on the Atlantic Bird 3 position at 5 degrees West: “A number of homes already have a satellite dish to access analogue television and they should have access without additional cost to the digital terrestrial channels. The establishment of a second TNT offer on satellite is necessary. ”
An alternative is already available on both Atlantic Bird and Eutelsat Hot Bird on the Bis Television platform from ABSat, but this is a (low) pay service and initially did not offer all 18 channels. Following a legal dispute with M6 Television, the broadcaster was forced to also offer its M6 and W9 channels to ABSat viewers.
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