Holland Switches Off
Holland has become the first country to switch completely to digital signals, after ending its transmission of free-to-air analogue television.
Only around 74,000 households relied primarily on over the air antennas in the country of 16 million, although 220,000 people had an ‘occasional use’ set, as the overwhelming majority of TV in the country is received via cable.
The bandwidth formerly used by analogue has been licensed through to 2017 by former Dutch telecommunications monopoly KPN, which will use it to broadcast digital television.
Under its license KPN built the digital broadcast network and must continue to broadcast three state-supported channels and several regional public broadcasters free of charge. In return, it can use the rest of the bandwidth to charge a monthly fee for a package of other channels comparable to cable.
At MediaTel Group’s ‘Future Of TV’ seminar in September, Ford Ennals, chief executive of Digital UK, said that digital switchover in Britain will be fundamental to the landscape of how and what people watch on television in the next few years (see Digital Switchover Will Be Fundamental To TV Landscape).