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123webguru News Desk
European broadcasters focus on improved TV picture
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
LUXEMBURG (Reuters) - Broadcasters are gearing up to introduce high definition television in Europe this year and in 2006, which will help the TV industry there to catch up with the United States and Japan, industry players said on Tuesday.
Some of Europe's biggest TV distributors, such as the region's biggest cable operator UnitedGlobalCom (UCOMA.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , French pay TV service Canal Plus (CNLP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) , and Germany's Premiere (PREGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) have aggressive plans for high definition (HD) channels, they said at a European conference about the improved TV standard.
Premiere will start broadcasting via satellite in November and will make sure that around 3,000 Premiere sports bars in Germany have high definition sets by June 2006, before the start of the world soccer championships there, said chief executive Georg Kofler.
Canal Plus said it will launch around April 2006, and UGC said that by 2007 the majority of its customers who will be put on the digital TV network over the next three years, will be able to receive an HD signal.
The broadcasters are the missing link that has kept Europe behind the United States where the government set out targets for high definition programs in the 1990s, and it has hurt the TV industry here, several players said.
"There's a very competitive dynamic in the United States. HD is used there to differentiate TV services, to reduce (customer) churn and to increase revenues." Said Warren Hobson, strategy director at Norway's TV technology firm Tandberg (TAT.OL: Quote, Profile, Research) .
Chris Deering, president Sony (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) Europe warned that "for the past 50 to 60 years, Europe has been at the forefront of TV technology and picture quality, and there's a risk we're losing that edge. At the moment we're quite far behind."
"We don't want Europe's youth marching off to the United States or Asia to create their dreams. We want them to stay here where TV was beautiful first," he added.
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In the United States 10 million homes owned a high quality TV set that could display HD TV, such as top of the range flat panels and rear projection sets, while close to 5 million have a HD TV service and 90 million homes are offered HD TV. Japan has 2 million HD TV sets households, according to a recent survey.
Europe has one dedicated HD TV channel now, called 1080.
"The HD awareness is still very low in Europe, and that's mostly due to lack of (broadcast) content," said Pacome Revillon, managing director at research group Euroconsult.
As a result, European film and TV production and post production companies have been slow to learn how to use the new technology, unless they are producing for the United States where most programs and movies need to be delivered in HD format, said Rola Bauer, the managing director of Tandem Communications, a German film production company. "There's little motivation to produce HD in Europe," she said.
The European Union has never set quota for HD television, but European media and telecommunications commissioner Viviane Reding proposed two weeks ago to switch off the analog TV signal in Europe by 2012, forcing broadcasters to go digital, which would involve high definition TV in most regions.
Additional regulation like in the United States, however, may not be used.
"My opinion is not very clear if this should be left to the market or if politics should be involved," she said at the conference.
The switch-off date of 2012 was applauded by Premiere CEO Kofler.
"We need more of those precise dates," he said.
Ferdinand Kayser, president and CEO of satellite operator SES Astra expected the move to high definition TV would be welcomed by most consumers, who are already buying flat TVs because of the crisp picture quality.
Europe, so far, is the only region where HD TV has started by consumers, by buying HD TV sets, rather than the broadcast industry or the regulator, even though European households have traditionally been used to far better TV picture quality than U.S. citizens who settled for a different technology, said Ben Keen, an analyst at British market research group ScreenDigest.
TV and set top box makers such as Philips and Thomson expect to have industry standard HD equipment ready in the second half of 2005, which will then be labeled "HD ready," making it easier for consumers to choose between devices.
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