Advanced Television

Italian DTT receiver sales top 8.6 million

July 24, 2008

From Branislav Pekic in Rome

A total of 310,000 DTT decoders were sold during May in Italy, bringing the total installed base to 8.6 million, A total of 310,000 DTT decoders were sold during May in Italy, bringing the total installed base to 8.6 million, according to the latest market survey conducted by Gfk. 236,000 (77 per cent of the total) were receivers integrated in other devices, while the remaining 75,000 were external set-top boxes. An estimated 1.4 million DTT decoders have been sold since the beginning of 2008.

Makno's “Monitor TV Digitale” survey, on the other hand, estimates that, at the end of May, there were 5,912,000 Italian DTT households, i.e. those having at least one digital terrestrial receiver in their principal home. This figure represents an increase of 130,000 units (+2.2 per cent) on April figures.

Significantly, for the first time the audience of the Italian DTT channels surpassed for the 5 per cent threshold in June, representing an increase of 131.8 per cent on June 2007. Italy's DTT offer is currently made up of 28 national free-to-air channels as well as movies, series, sports and kids programs available on PPV.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTT/DSO