German Digital TV launch lacks content......................................
tele-satellit.com
Eat the rich
And then there was Germany's only analogue pay-TV channel, Premiere.
They officially launched a digital service as well today, utilising
the d-box that was declared the "national standard" decoder in
newspaper ads by Premiere, its former rival Leo Kirch (DF1) and
Germany's cable giant Deutsche Telekom.
Premiere officials said their digital offering was "the most
attractive programming ever seen on German TV screens." And the most
expensive. In theory, there is no additional fee for the digital
bouquet - on the other hand, it doesn't offer anything but three
time-shifted versions of Premiere's analogue service. To receive them,
subscribers will have to rent a decoder for DM20 per month (or maybe
buy one for DM1,200.) In addition, there are four pay-per-view
channels available which, as the name indicates, are not available
without additional payment.
All this on top of the monthly license fee of almost DM30 every owner
of a TV set has to shell out, in addition to almost DM50 per month
every Premiere subscriber has to pay, and maybe even in addition to
cable fees. Premiere Digital will initially reach 61 percent of the
country's cable households. In the worst case, viewers will end up
paying the equivalent of US$75 per month - not for a premium package
with dozens of channels, but just for Premiere Digital. Pay per view
not included, of course.
Pay-TV managers seem to think there's quite a lot of idiots living in
Germany who are looking for a more entertaining alternative to
flushing their money through the loo. The problem is that in a large
country such as Germany, even those idiots may be enough to keep some
kind of digital pay-TV alive, hence depriving the rest of the audience
of first-class programming. |
