UK: Digital Terrestrial Television

Three of Britain’s biggest television broadcasters – Carlton Communications, British Sky Broadcasting and the Granada Group – have joined forces to bid for the right to launch Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) in the UK. The consortium – called British Digital Broadcasting (BDB) – has also reached agreement with the BBC to broadcast a number of subscription-only channels. The UK is thus the first country to announce the launch of DTT, which could start by July 1998. An advantage of DTT over satellite broadcasting is that it can be broadcast from conventional land-based transmitters and be received by standard TV aerials, yet it can offer as big a range of channels as satellite broadcasters.