M7 Group’s Belgian subsidiary TV Vlaanderen will be launching a pay DTT service in Flanders and Brussels before the end of the year.
Called Antenne TV, the new service will consist of about ten channels including the TV channels of Medialaan (VTM, Q2, Vitaya), SBS Belgium (4, Vijf and Zes) and others.
Public broadcaster VRT’s channels (Een, Canvas and Ketnet) are already freely available via DVB-T.
“There is a strong demand in the market for a channel offering with only the most frequently viewed TV channels at a competitive price,” said Yannick Altruy, Country Manager for Belgium at M7 Group.
“Antenna TV is the ideal supplement to satellite TV for us to play on. With the smaller channel offer, the subscription price will also be lower than the current TV formulas at TV Vlaanderen.”
The service will be offered via the DVB-T2 network, owned and operated by Norkring, in Dutch speaking Belgium and Brussels. “Nowadays we want to be able to watch live TV everywhere,” commented Hans Troelstra, CEO of M7 Group.
“In order to guarantee our digital radio and television services, we have made considerable investments in recent years in equipment and masts as well as in human capital,” said Bart Bosmans, CEO of Norkring Belgium.
“Only at home the cable, or on the move the range and data consumption often plays its part. With Antenne TV we want to offer an offline solution that is completely free of satellite, cable or internet.”
TV Vlaanderen will start selling a CI+ module for Antenne TV with integrated smart card for €39. A combined DVB-T2 tuner, decoder and CI+ module will retail at €99. The hardware will become available from mid-December.
