Canal Digital Norway has now sold 100,000 HD decoders after abandoning the additional subscription fee and including its HD channels as part of the regular packaging structure.
Svein Erik Davidsen, CEO, Canal Digital Norway told Broadband TV News that the pay-TV operator had sold around 60,000 decoders in the period to April, when the fee was dropped, and that sales had since continued at much the same rate.
Interest has increased as a result of Canal Digital’s coverage of the Euro 2008 football championships and Norway’s analogue switch-off leading to a shortage of supplies in some areas.
“We have a lot of existing customers buying the boxes that have already purchased HD Ready TV sets. Many of the new subscribers also prefer the HD boxes, even if they have to pay a little bit more because it’s important for them to have a future proofed solution,” said Davidsen. An HD set-top box is priced at NOK1,000 (€126) with a 12-month contract; the PVR version costs NOK3,000.
Davidsen explained there was an even split of sales between cable and DTH subscribers. Despite HD being made available later to cable subscribers, he estimated that the installed base was also equal to that of DTH, buoyed by interest from multiple dwelling units that have selected HD boxes for all their households.