Germany’s second-largest cable operator Unitymedia will terminate analogue TV distribution on its cable network on June 30, 2017.
The goal is that 95% of Unitymedia customers will have made the move to digital TV by then, CEO Lutz Schüler said at a press conference with the local media authorites in Düsseldorf. The share of digital TV households currently amounts to 85%. Customers without a digital TV reception device at the analogue switch-off date will be issued with a free digital TV box by Unitymedia, revealed Schüler.
Regarding cable radio, Unitymedia, however, wants to keep an analogue offer as digital radio on cable doesn’t yet play an important role among its customers, said Schüler, adding that 11% of Unitymedia’s customers have hooked up their stereo system with their cable connection.
Unitymedia is the first large German cable operator to make the full transition to digital TV. The company serving federal states North-Rhine Westphalia, Hessen and Baden-Württemberg has already been reducing its analogue TV line-up since July 1, 2015 while increasing its digital TV and HD offer in return.
The first analogue switch-off will take place as part of a pilot project in Hanau, a town near Frankfurt, in September 2016.
After UPC Cablecom in Switzerland and UPC Austria, Unitymedia is the third subsidiary of Liberty Global in German-speaking Europe to close down analogue cable TV.
