The monthly fee for the new German pay-TV platform Entavio from Astra has been set at a monthly €2 for what is described as ‘technical costs’. This will pay only for the infrastructure, on top of which consumers have to buy subscription packages. The new service is set for launch on September 1 with Premiere Star to be the first customer.
Entavio will license receiver manufacturers giving them the right to sell Entavio-branded boxes. Of the receivers currently deployed in the German market, all the current Premiere receivers will be compatible (about 1.7 million), also the old ‘d-boxes’ (500,000) and a further 1 million Premiere compatible receivers, most of them equipped with a CI slot.