Outlook

In any assessment of the future development of digital terrestrial television broadcasting, the status and interdependence with the other technical media currently operated and the specific penetration profiles must be discussed. Table 10.1-1 shows the status of the absolute and relative figures of TV households in Europe connected to terrestrial TV, to satellites and to cable, the number of inhabitants per country being provided as additional information. The excerpts below show that the situation is heterogeneous: 98% of Belgium and 92% of the Netherlands are connected to cable but national terrestrial transmitter networks are being operated mainly for programme distribution to cable headstations.