France Télévisions has signed a long-term contract with Eutelsat Communications to broadcast the regional channels produced by France 3 on the Atlantic Bird™ 3 satellite located at 5 degrees West. From October 28th, all homes in France equipped with a dish to receive Atlantic Bird 3 and a subscription-free Fransat decoder will have access to digital reception of all 24 of France 3’s regional channels.

This new initiative, which enables viewers to access the regional window of their choice, forms part of the progressive digitisation of France’s broadcasting network. It will benefit viewers beyond range of terrestrial reception after analogue switch-off, as well as homes already equipped for DTH analogue TV reception from Atlantic Bird 3 and who will simply need to change their decoder to switch to digital. The 24 regional channels produced by France 3 will join the 18 national channels in SD and the four channels in HD that are already available on a subscription-free basis via Fransat. Launched by Eutelsat in June, Fransat complements coverage of France’s DTT channels and aims in particular to serve homes already equipped with a dish pointing to Atlantic Bird 3.