Niels Breining
Denmark’s largest cable company YouSee has responded to the forthcoming analogue switch-off, and the full launch of the Boxer pay-TV packages, by making its digital packs freely available to all its subscribers.
From September 15 – a full six weeks ahead of ASO – the majority of YouSee’s 1.1 million subscribers will be able to view the cablenet’s three digital bouquets. The exception being subscribers that receive their signals through the so-called antenna associations that have yet to fully upgrade their infrastructure.
YouSee CEO Niels Breining said the technology that was being deployed to enable the service represented a new standard. “We are in a unique situation because thanks to our filter technology we can distribute three different programme packages in both digital and analogue quality that can be viewed independently of each other without the use of additional equipment on all the TVs in the home.”
YouSee is estimating that within two years 500,000 homes, half of its installed base, will be viewing their channels digitally through a combination of set-top boxes and television displays with an inbuilt DVB-C tuner. The TDC-owned company has not released digital subscriber figures for some time, but as was the case with extended basic packages in analogue, Nordic operators have generally struggled to sell up their customers.
YouSee is also taking the opportunity to promote its YouSee Plus product, which combines PVR functionality with Startover. Subscribers can also enjoy catch-up TV from the public broadcaster Danmarks Radio with plans to add the commercial at a later stage.
