The French AB Group is to launch a new DTH bouquet, called Bis, which will be available on the Eutelsat Hot Bird and Atlantic Bird satellites. The service is due to make its debut before the Christmas season and will offer a wide choice of channels at a relatively low price.
The basic tier will cost €4.90 a month and consists of 24 channels: TF1, France2, France 3, France 4, France 5, RTL9, AB1, Mangas, Arte, Direct8, TMC, AB Moteurs, Escales, Chasse et Pêche, NT1, NRJ 12, LCP & Public Sénat, Toute l’histoire, Vidéo Click, BFM TV, Europe2TV, Gulli, France Ô. This includes almost the all free-to-air terrestrial channels, with the notable exception of M6 and W9. All the regional variations of France 3 will be offered on Atlantic Bird since the satellite is also used for feeding transmission sites.
A second tier offers the five AB movie channels (action, fx, polar, cinéfirst, cinépop) for an additional €4.90 monthly. A special ‘Option night’ includes two erotic channels, XXL and Dorcel TV for another €4.90. An ‘ultimum’ bouquet retails at €13.90 monthly. The channels will be encoded in Viaccess and smart cards will be sold as pre-paid cards for a minimum of 12 months. AB is also making a similar offer over IPTV called ABWeb.