The number of satellite households receiving digital television via Astra (19.2° East) in Germany has risen in 2009 by around one million to 12.14 million.

More than half (58%) of Germany’s total number of digital TV households are Astra households, confirming the role of DTH as the main accelerator for digitalisation in Germany.

Out of Germany’s 37.4 million TV households, 21.12 million (56%) were digital households at the end of 2009.

However, there’s still great disparity between reception methods: 75% of DTH households have moved to digital, while the digital share on cable networks stands at 34%.

The figures are taken from the new Satellite Monitor report which SES Astra unveiled at a press conference in Berlin on March 17.

For the study, which market research group TNS Infratest compiles each year for the satellite operator, around 6,000 interviews were conducted in autumn 2009 in Germany.

A look at reception methods reveals that cable networks continue to be the main television supplier.

Out of Germany’s 37.4 million TV households 18.6 million have a cable subscription, giving cable a market share of 50%.

16.2 million households have a DTH system (43%), 2 million (5%) rely on DTT and 700,000 (2%) have opted for IPTV.

HDTV continues to be a driving force for digitalisation.

According to market research group GfK, in December 2009 more HD receivers were sold than conventional set-top-boxes for the first time.

Since the introduction of HDTV in Germany in January 2006, a total of 1.3 million satellite HD receivers have been sold.

At the end of January 2010, more than 22 million HD ready TV sets stood in German households.

With the launch of the public broadcasters’ HD channels at the Winter Olympics, German DTH households can now receive 17 HD channels on Astra, leading to Germany jumping from spot 17 to spot 4 amongst Europe’s HD nations within the past 12 months.

SES Astra expects to carry “considerably more than 20 HD channels” on its satellite system for German households by the end of the year.

SES Astra’s latest numbers show the strength of satellite in Europe grows and grows, with satellite homes overtaking cable homes for the first time ever.

Yesterday a UK terrestrial network (Ch 5) decided to place its HDTV eggs firmly onto the satellite market, having not been able to secure ‘terrestrial’ distribution.

Ch 5 becomes BSkyB’s 42^nd HDTV channel.

The move isn’t surprising given the instant audience satellite delivers.

The satellite story, as far as SES Astra is concerned, is more than spectacular.

SES says they have added 3m new satellite homes in Europe over this past year, and that the number of European satellite homes now exceeds that of cable.

Moreover, satellite is now almost totally a digital audience, while cable lags behind with barely one third of homes viewing digital channels.

SES Astra is now broadcasting to 125 million TV homes across Europe and North Africa, 3 million more than the year before.

For the first time, satellite reaches more households than cable in Europe, with 77 million satellite and 71 million cable households.

Terrestrial infrastructures reach 86.5 million households; however, not even half of them (48%) are digital.

The digitalisation rate of satellite increased to 92%, with a total of 71 million out of the 77 million satellite households being digital.

Cable still shows the lowest digitalisation rate, with one third or 34% (24 million) of all 71 million cable households being digital.

IPTV is 100% digitised and reaches 9 million households across Europe.

In high definition, Astra counts around 6 million HD viewing homes and currently broadcasts 114 HD channels.

The success of HD is underpinned by the high number of HD screens sold across Europe.

125 million HD Ready TV sets have been sold since the start of HD in 2005.

It is expected that by 2013, an estimated 55 million households will be equipped with both an HD Ready TV set and a suitable HD receiver.

Satellite is expected to remain the largest distribution platform for HD.

“The significant increase in reach and the success of SES Astra are based on a stable business model and on strong drivers which allow us to develop our business despite the difficult market situation,” says Ferdinand Kayser, President/CEO SES Astra.

“The underlying dynamics of Western European key markets, and the growth in Eastern Europe, impressively demonstrate that we are able to maintain our competitive position and further develop our reach, in technical and commercial terms.

“Whether in HD, hybrid reception or 3D TV, we are extremely well positioned to play a leading role in future innovations.”

Astra’s highlights:

• Total of 244 million analogue and digital TV homes in Europe
• Astra fleet reaches 125 million analogue and digital TV households in Europe and North Africa (57 million Direct-to-Home, 68 million through cable head-ends)
• Around 60% or 146 million TV homes receive programs digitally (includes all reception modes: satellite, cable, terrestrial, IPTV)
• Satellite serves every second digital TV household and reaches 71 million digital homes (49% of the digital market); cable reaches 24 million digital homes (16%), terrestrial reaches 41.7 million digital homes (29%), IPTV reaches nine million homes (6%).
• Astra serves 52 million digital satellite homes (72% of all digital satellite homes)
• Astra currently features 114 HD channels and reaches around 6 million HD viewing homes
• Digitalisation rate of satellite is 9%, compared to 48% for terrestrial reception and 34% for cable networks

Australia’s federal government has introduced legislation which will pave the way for a “Freesat” service.

The free-to-air satellite platform will be aimed primarily at homes which cannot receive digital TV signals over the air.

Freesat will be a satellite-delivered version of the Freeview digital-terrestrial platform.

Each of Australia’s major broadcasters – the ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine and Ten, also operates one standard-definition digital-only channel (ABC2, SBS Two, Seven Two, Go! And One) as well as a high definition channel.

There are also high definition versions of regional networks Prime and WIN.

The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2010 provides the legislative framework for the new satelllite service.

It wil create three new commercial TV licence areas specifically for the new satellite service: Northern Australia (encompassing the Northern Territory and Queensland); South Eastern Australia (the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria) and Western Australia.

Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy said: “The Bill will help broadcasters provide the same number of digital television services to all Australians wherever they live, whether they access television through terrestrial transmission or via satellite.”

The legislation also requires commercial broadcasters to provide all local news and information programs to the satellite service licensee, and will ensure that viewers who rely on satellite are able to access their local news as soon as possible after bulletins commence on the terrestrial channel.

The Government intends to refer this legislation to the Senate Environment, Communications and the Arts Committee immediately, so that it is able to be debated in the Budget sittings.

Conroy added: “The Bill will dramatically improve the choice and quality of digital television services for regional Australia as we move towards digital switchover.”

While Eutelsat has made no secret of its ambitions to – over time – win 750,000 two-way broadband users to its upcoming Ka-Sat satellite, SES Astra is certainly not ignoring the potential of satellite-delivered broadband.

The difference between Eutelsat and SES Astra is one of market deployment.

Eutelsat’s giant Ka-Sat will launch later this year and new CEO Michel de Rosen’s job is to “step by step” see the satellite’s impressive spot-beam technology used to speedily generate around €100m a year in revenues from the craft.

SES Astra’s approach is also ‘step by step’, but instead of financing a single, dedicated Ka-band satellite, it will instead add smaller Ka-band cargoes to a number of upcoming satellite launches.

This additional capacity will be used to further build on its ASTRA2Connect system.

For that reason, Astra says it will invest in Ka-band capacity dedicated especially for satellite broadband, and deploy these new two-way broadband networks in markets where Astra has a strong presence and a well-established distribution network.

Astra’s incremental Ka-band payload will be carried on the upcoming ASTRA 2E, 2F and 2G, procured in November 2009.

Each of these satellites are equipped with three steerable spot-beams each, which allows Astra to adapt the payload according to the needs of the market.

In addition, the inclusion of steerable beams has the advantage that it provides simpler launch failure mitigation.

This means that Astra can always serve two out of three markets in case of a single launch failure. Astra’s experience is this area was tough when it lost its own Astra 1K all-Ka satellite back in November 2002.

These smaller Ka-band payloads for satellite broadband will allow SES Astra to increase its commercial activities and the company says it will meet the demands for satellite broadband in its European key markets.

Either way, European satellite users, especially those living in remote areas will have no excuse for ignoring the rush to broadband.

Eutelsat’s Tooway, and Astra2Connect will cover Europe with their signals soon enough.

Paris-based Eutelsat is committed to spending about €450m each year until 2012.

That translates into almost two satellites per annum. But the spending won’t stop in 2012.

CEO Michel de Rosen, speaking in Washington at the Satellite 2010 show, said that while the satellite operator had yet to give formal guidance he saw capital expenditure continuing to average about €400m per annum for the mid-term future.

He added that while some of this cash would go on fleet replacement his firm intention was to see the Eutelsat fleet add fresh capacity, and develop new markets.

However, he repeated that he saw this effort concentrated more in an Easterly direction, than Westerly.

He said that North America was now generating only modest growth while there were many other parts of the planet represented considerable growth opportunities.

However, Mr de Rosen said that Eutelsat was very keen to build on its recent successes with the US Department of Defence, which was buying significant quantities of capacity.

The DoD is responsible for some 80% of Eutelsat’s ‘multi-usage’ take-up, and that while contract lengths were shorter there was still good business in military and governmental sales.

With the decision on Project Canvas still to be made, those on the outside of the project are calling for the online TV service to be scrapped before it even gets started.

One such opponent to Project Canvas is the satellite service provider BSkyB.

In fact the chief operating officer of Sky TV, Mike Darcey, has stated that the launch of the BBC led web TV service would distort fair competition.

It seems that even if the Project gets the go ahead, the competition commission may be called upon to decide if this is a venture that is fair to the competition or not.

BSkyB is not the only company with concerns as, according to Mr Darcey, Virgin Media, Samsung and IP Vision are also concerned about the BBC’s plans for Project Canvas.

Only the other day the media regulator got tough with terrestrial broadcaster Five, by handing over its HD slot on the free-to-view digital TV service, Freeview, to the BBC.

In a surprising turn of events it now appears that Five is not too bothered about that decision, as this summer Five HD will be launching on the Sky platform instead.

The new channel will be a simulcast of the standard definition broadcast.

This will allow viewers to enjoy Five’s varied schedule, which includes FlashForward, Neighbours and CSI.

Five HD will become the forty-second high definition channel to be launched on the Sky platform and it is clear that BSkyB is well on target to reach the fifty HD channels it wanted by the end of the year.

Could ITV be rethinking its position on the provision of local news and regional programming?

According to The Guardian, it seems that the new chairman of ITV, Archie Norman, could be having second thoughts on the broadcaster’s plans for local news.

It was Norman’s predecessor, Michael Grade, who took the decision to cut back on regional programming including the local news.

But now a new review of the situation is underway in all areas of public service broadcasting.

Currently three trials are about to take place, where the local news will be taken over by various consortiums.

However, a change of heart and direction by ITV could mean that these plans are scrapped and once more a regional flavour will be brought back to ITV.

Viewers of some TV programmes will have noticed that sponsorship deals mean advertising for video games is being shown at the beginning, end and during breaks, but some of these games are violent and not suitable, according to the Broadcast Committee on Advertising Practice.

This means that there are now plans for tighter regulations to bring the advertising of games in line with the regulations used in the film industry.

There was a rather long consultation period that actually saw around thirty thousand responses on various subjects that have affected advertising on television.

The conclusion is that the new code of advertising will mean that ads and sponsorships for games that have an age restriction will no longer be able to be shown around TV programming for young children.

Virgin Media is going Android crazy, as the company puts it, adopting a quartet of phones based on Google’s operating system.

The company has recently launched the LG InTouch Max, and coming freshly released is the Samsung Galaxy Portal.

The InTouch Max has a 3.2 inch touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, 3G, wi-fi, GPS, and a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. The phone comes for free on a £22 per month plan.

As for the Galaxy Portal, that comes equipped with a 3.2 inch touchscreen, a 3.2 megapixel camera, a 1GB memory card, assisted GPS, 3G and wi-fi. It also boasts a fancy navigation app called Layar. Again, you can get the handset free on a £22 per month deal.

Two more Android phones are due at some stage next month, the first being the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, with its 4 inch WVGA screen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 8 megapixel camera, wi-fi, 3G and GPS.

The other is the HTC Desire, which is very much like Google’s Nexus One. The smartphone sports a 3.7 inch AMOLED touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, and a 1GHz processor.

Pricing details on these last two phones have not yet been made available.