Media authorities release 2013 report on digitisation in Germany

Germany’s media authorities (die medienanstalten) have released their ninth report on digitisation in the country.

“Last year, we could report a leap in the rate of digitisation in Germany: The switchover to fully digital satellite transmission and/or the switch-off of the analogue satellite signal resulted in an exceptionally high increase of 10 percentage points. Compared to this, the rise by 3 percentage points to 80.8 per cent of digital TV households seems more like a small hop. In mid-2013, some 19.2 per cent of German TV houses still watched analogue television only; around the same time last year, it had been 22.2 per cent.

The overall figure of German households watching TV via a digital infrastructure now comes to 30.8 million. In 28 million households, consumption is digital via all TV receivers available in the home while 2.8 million households watch TV both in analogue and in digital technology.

Were analogue cable signal transmission switched off overnight, just over 7.3 million German TV households would at present literally watch a black screen.

If one adds to that the 2.8 million homes that partially watch in digital technology, there still is a total 10.1 million German TV households awaiting (full) digitisation. The figure shows that this is no small feat but that there is still some effort required.”