French TNTSAT: 3.3 Million Set-Top-Boxes sold at year-end 2011
Monday, January 23rd, 2012LUXEMBOURG / PARIS – SES S.A. (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) announced today that TNTSAT, the French digital terrestrial offer on satellite broadcast via ASTRA, reached a total of 3.3 million receivers sold at the end of 2011. This represents an increase of 650,000 compared to the end of 2010. TNTSAT is the leading French digital terrestrial offer via satellite.
The TNTSAT offer was launched in March 2007 and supported the transition from analogue to digital reception which was completed in November 2011 with the switch off in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.
With TNTSAT, viewers are able to receive the full French digital terrestrial offer: the 19 French free-to-air channels and the 24 regional channels of France 3 and TV8 Mont Blanc, as well as four channels in High Definition (HD).
In order to receive TNTSAT, households need a satellite dish pointed to the ASTRA orbital position 19.2 degrees East and a TNTSAT receiver with a smart card. Viewers can also receive in a free-to-air mode 10 additional French TV channels, 40 radio channels on the French FM band, and 460 international TV and radio channels.
More than 80 receiver models are currently available, many of them equipped for HD. TNTSAT does not require a subscription, nor a decoder rental fee. Most of the receivers are labeled “CANAL READY” which means that they are able to receive CANAL+ and CanalSat offers by simply replacing the receiver’s smart card.