Kirch opens digital television up to other operators (Kirch offnet das digitale Fernsehen fur andere Anbieter)
01/13/99
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Page 19
Copyright(C) 1999 Abstracted from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in German, Source: World Reporter (TM)
German media group Kirch of Ismaning, near Munich has, in conjunction with the television channels ARD, ZDF and Premiere and the telecommunications operator Deutsche Telekom AG, reached an agreement over opening up the digital television market. Yesterday, Kirch presented a new interface which will allow other operators to adapt the set - top box required for decoding digital signals to their own programming output. Manuel Cubero is managing director of Kirch's subsidiary Betaresearch, which manufacture the decoders. He says the new interface will be suitable for the development of all manner of interactive services. It will cost DM 29,125 as a complete system.
Betaresearch has also signed a deal with Dutch group Philips, which plans to produce its own decoders, and is prepared to do the same for other manufacturers. Sales of the boxes have been slower than expected, but stocks have still sold out. Around 700,000 German households now have one. When Kirch started its digital service DF 1 in July 1996, it predicted that it would have 2 million subscribers by 2000. However, the figure has had to be brought down considerably: it tripled to 280,000 last year, and is expected to almost double to half a million by the end of 1999.
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