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Digital TV Use in China Much Lower than Expected |
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LONDON, Feb. 12, 2007/Satnews Daily/ ― Research and Markets, a firm with a library of over 380,000 reports, says digital TV’s penetration rate in China is much lower than global levels.
In its report, “China Digital TV Market Operation Report 2005-2006,” the firm says the gap is larger when compared to that between the UK and USA. It said the reasons for China’s low penetration levels include policy decisions, funding and the lack of content.
China's 30-year old cable TV (CATV) industry is now the largest cable TV network in the world and has become one of the most important components in China's radio TV industry.
China began transmitting CCTV programs nationwide via communication satellites in 1985. China has made a great progress in satellite broadcasting and TV technology in the past two decades.
The adoption of satellite digital compression technology has improved the signal quality of TV programs from CCTV or provincial broadcast TV stations and expanded the coverage of TV. Satellites allowed TV to reach 1.3 billion Chinese in 2005, a coverage ratio of 96 percent, much higher than the 68 percent in 1985. Yet due to policy decisions, live broadcast of digital TV in China remains restricted.
Compared with developed countries, China has lagged far behind in digital TV, yet it made rapid progress in 2005 with 4.13 million Chinese subscribing to digital TV. Among these were 3.97 million digital cable digital TV subscribers.
The report said problems with China's DTV industry include backward standards, difficulties in network consolidation, deficient terminals, immature markets, serious shortage of content and immature core technology. China, however, plans to stop the transmission of analog TV programs by 2015.
There were 170 million digital TV users worldwide in 2005, an increase of 40 million compared to 2004.
The UK has the highest penetration ratio of digital TV worldwide at 70 percent, followed by the USA with 55 percent. Japan’s penetration stands at 50 percent and in Europe, about 30 percent. Globally, digital TV penetration is some 16 percent.
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