Towards Digital Television in Europe

AbstractOn the face of it, DTV would seem to be a technology for which consumer demand is weak at best. As a production, delivery and display innovation, its deployment is more obviously driven by a technological rather than an audience imperative. The major question hanging over its future is how this greatly enhanced distribution system will be supplied with programmes. Much of the debate on DTV so far has concentrated on engineering standards, delivery platforms and the impact of competition. Major film5V companies increasingly see the roll-out of DTV in the context of a “windowing” strategy, which serves to maximise profits by extending market reach over time as well as across territories. This will go some way towards answering the question of where significantly large new volumes of programming will be sourced in order to drive a “content is king” scenario. But there is the danger, for early adopters especially, that disillusionment may set in as the rhetoric of abundance, pushed hard by the TV indu...