DTH satellite reception remains the most used TV reception method in Germany: Its reach rose by around 130,000 households to 17.72 million in 2017.
By contrast, cable television lost 180,000 households and decreased to 16.39 million. With a growth by 300,000 to 2.64 million households, IPTV recorded the strongest increase. At 1.83 million households, digital terrestrial television (DTT) remained at the previous year’s level.
This means that 45.9% of the 38.58 million German TV households opted for DTH satellite reception, 42.5% for cable, 6.8% for IPTV and 4.7% for DTT.
These are the results of the Astra TV-Monitor 2017 carried out annually by market research institute Kantar TNS on behalf of Astra Deutschland. The survey of a total of 6,000 households across Germany took place at the end of 2017. In the evaluation, the main reception device of the households was taken into account, usually the large TV set in the living room.
The number of HD households in Germany rose from 22.54 million to 27.48 million within one year. This means that 71% of all households watched television in HD quality in 2017. With 12.66 million households, DTH satellite is the leading HD reception infrastructure. Cable (10.86 million) and IPTV (2.52 million) follow in second and third place.
However: Of the 12.66 million HD satellite households, only 2.1 million have opted for for subscription platform HD+ on which the commercial free-to-air TV channels can be received in HD quality. There was no increase in paying HD+ customers in 2017 compared to 2016. The majority of HD satellite households seem to be satisfied with receiving commercial free-TV channels in SD quality free of charge.
However, the two new platforms Diveo from M7 Group and Freenet TV via satellite by Media Broadcast which also offer the commercial channels in HD quality on Astra could provide a boost.
Following the transition to the new DVB-T2 standard, DTT appears for the first time in HD distribution statistics with 1.44 million households.
Demand for Ultra HD continues to grow: 2.7 million UHD TV sets were sold in Germany in 2017, compared to less than 2 million a year earlier, according to German industry association gfu. By the end of 2017, a total of almost 6 million UHD devices had been sold in Germany.