Eutelsat has dismissed reports that it plans to launch a satellite platform in Ukraine.
Speaking in a panel discussion at the Dataxis NexTV Series CEE & DACH conference in Berlin, Apostolos Triantafyllou, the company’s SVP sales DACH, CE Europe, Israel, Caucasus & Central Asia, said that its partner in the country is Xtra TV and it has no intention of launching a platform there.
Meanwhile, Alexey Kurakin, business development and digital transformation director, Media Group Ukraine (MGU, said that a third of homes in Ukraine receive FTA DTH services.
The DTH platform market has seen a number of changes in recent years and there are currently only two in operation, namely Viasat and Xtra TV. Taken together, they are have no more than 100,000-120,000 subscribers.
Kurakin also said that FTA DTH channels may be encrypted in the country next year, adding that currently the top 10 channels in Ukraine are currently available FTA on satellite
Furthermore, 4.5 million households watch FTA DTH services daily.
Broadband TV News notes that reports about Eutelsat’s DTH plans in Ukraine first appeared this October.