When it comes to the roll out of DTT services, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has until recently lagged far behind most West European countries.
At first there was probably a good reason for this: markets such as the UK, Spain and Sweden had gone in too quickly and had their fingers burnt, in some instances quite spectacularly. ‘Why not sit back, watch and learn from their mistakes before launching our own services?’ was the attitude that seemed to prevail.
This ‘learning period’ nevertheless went by relatively quickly, and still most countries in the region held back from launching a DTT platform. Invariably, their inactivity was closely tied in to regulatory problems, and in particular governments’ lack of urgency in devising strategies for the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting. The 2012 ASO ‘deadline’ suggested by the EU, though something to aim for, felt far off despite in truth being only a few years away.
Then, as if all of a sudden, things began to change – at first in one country and then in several. The real catalysts were undoubtedly the Czech Republic, where a limited DTT service was launched in the capital, Prague, in October 2005, and Estonia, where the MPEG-4-based platform ZUUMtv made its debut in December 2006.
Since then there have been significant developments in a number of other countries. Slovenia, for instance, introduced a single multiplex service last year and has recently announced a tender for a second. Lithuania’s incumbent telco TEO LT launched a DTT service named Digital GALA earlier this year, while in Hungary a tender is currently in progress, with the results due to be announced later in the summer.
While Poland, one of the region’s largest markets, has until now been something of a laggard, it, too, has at long last started to see some welcome developments. A debate on DTT is in full swing, and a tender for one of its first two multiplexes will be held later this year.
DTT has undoubtedly turned a corner in CEE, and the next couple of years are likely to be quite eventful as most countries throughout the region finally start to roll out services.
