Between April 26 and June 19, 2012, Belgian cable operator Telenet will be expanding its digital TV offer, while contracting its analogue basic bouquet.
The operator will move a number of analogue channels to its basic digital package, but will keep at least 21 channels in analogue. Telenet will continue to distribute all the national channels, all the regional channels as well as the highest rating analogue channels. According to Telenet, these 21 channels represent 90% of its subscribers’ viewing time.
At the end of December 2011, 36% of Telenet television customers were still watching analogue television. In the beginning of 2005, this was 100%.
Telenet will expand its basic digital tier to more than 75 channels. It is adding two German private broadcasters, Vox and N-TV, to its already existing offer of German channels, ARD, ZDF, WDR, RTL, Prosieben and Sat1.
The cabler is also adding the Sundance Channel to basic digital. On May 1, Telenet will also start to carry the new third channel from Flemish public broadcaster VRT, when Ketnet and Canvas will each get their own dedicated 24/7 channel. All three VRT channels will be available in both analogue and digital.
Telenet is offering people who switch to digital ‘digital welcome packages’ including a 4-month free trail period of the HD Digicorder PVR or a one-time offer of buying the PVR outright for €50.
The cabler is also extending its TV Everywhere service Yelo to Android devices. The number of channels that can be streamed to mobile devices is also increasing with the addition of 14 new channels.
New to Yelo are two channels from SBS Belgium, VT4 and VijfTV and a large number of channels in French including RTBF’s La Une, La Deux and La Trois, RTL TVi, Club RTL, and Plug RTL. Kanaal Z, Xite, CNBC, Ment, Actua TV and Bloomberg were also added.
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