German households are fast adopting digital receivers: according to the latest Digitalisierungsbericht 2010 23,133,000 now have access to digital television. This is 6.7% more than last year.
Terrestrial television and IPTV are already 100% digital, followed by DTH satellite, which now reaches 79.1% of all dish owners, up 5% from last year. With regards to Astra reception, at the end of June 2010, some 12.6 million households were receiving digital TV from 19.2 degrees East. German broadcasters plan to switch off all analogue satellite broadcasts by April 2012.
The total number of homes receiving DVB-T is 4,167,000. IPTV is delivered by three operators – Deutsche Telekom (Entertain), Arcor and Alice (HanseNet).
Cable is still lagging behind. Although the percentage grew by 7.2%, digital cable penetration still stands at 37.8%. This is equivalent to 7.3 million cable households. Over half of all German homes receive TV via cable, 51.4%.
Thomas Braun, President of the ANGA Association of German cable operators, commented: “These figures show that digitalisation of cable households has taken up speed.” There is no analogue switch-off plan for cable, “People can decide with their remote control to switch from analogue to digital,” according to Braun.
Watching online catch-up videos from the so-called “Mediatheken” is also increasing in popularity. During the first half of 2010, some 22.2% of all people watched online video, as compared with 14.4% in 2009.
