SES Astra further increases its reach

[Analoguesat]

SES Astra has further increased its audience reach in Europe. In early 2007, 109.2 million TV homes in 35 European and North African countries received their audiovisual broadcast and broadband services via the Astra Satellite System. Out of these, 47.2 million homes – 2.2 million more than last year – received their signal directly from the Astra satellites (Direct-to-Home, DTH). The other 62 million are cable homes served indirectly by Astra through headends. These are the results of the latest “Satellite Monitor” conducted every year by leading market research institutes on behalf of SES Astra .

The new survey shows a dramatic increase of digital reception by 19.6 million homes to now 80.7 million out of a total of 238.5 million TV homes across the 35 countries. One third of European households therefore are today digital. With 48.6 million homes – representing a market share of 60% amongst all digital homes – satellite remains by far the most important digital reception mode. Astra is serving 35.2 million of these digital satellite homes, up from 29.2 million last year. 75% of all Astra DTH homes are therefore now digital, up from 65% last year. 12 million Astra homes still receive exclusively analogue signals, 70% of them in Germany.

SES Astra has also significantly increased its digital satellite reach in Germany to 8 million homes, up from 6.3 million in the previous year. Almost half of the 16.4 million German Astra satellite households are therefore now digital. The increase is mainly due to the switch of terrestrial households to digital satellite in several regions and to a significant increase of Free-, Pay- and High Definition TV channels offered on the Astra satellites. The overall number of TV homes in Germany remained stable at 37.2 million.

(Source: SES Astra press release)