...TV reception modes and trends across its global footprint, with a presentation in Rome of the Italian broadcasting landscape. Working in collaboration with Ipsos, Eutelsat announced that 8.2 million homes are now equipped with a DTH antenna, consolidating the role of satellites as a core broadcast infrastructure serving one in three TV homes in Italy. Eutelsat's HOT BIRD satellites, the longstanding reference for multi-channel viewing across Italy, account for 7.3 million homes, showing a gain of over 200,000 homes in 24 months. A further 700,000 homes are equipped to watch satellite TV from other Eutelsat neighbourhoods, led by EUTELSAT 16A, EUTELSAT 9A and EUTELSAT 7 West A. Over nine out of ten satellite homes in Italy are served by a Eutelsat satellite.

Eutelsat's HOT BIRD broadcast satellites, already home to 378 Italian TV channels, have anchored their position as the platform of choice for exclusive Free-to-Air and payTV channels. HOT BIRD is also becoming the first port of call for the fast-growing HDTV market. The Sky Italia payTV platform has a subscriber base of 4.8 million homes at the HOT BIRD position and is driving HDTV take-up, with three out of four subscribers watching more than 50 channels in HD. A total of 2.4 million Italian households are watching free-to-air channels, of which over 1.5 million are equipped for DTH reception of TivùSat, the satellite DTT platform, up from 1.3 million homes since the switch-off of Italy's analogue broadcasting network in July 2012.

Overall, Italy's satellite TV universe continues to expand and is the second most popular route to multi-channel viewing. Of a nationwide base of 24.7 million TV homes one out of three has opted for satellite reception of pay or free-to-air channels. Sixteen million homes watch TV via the terrestrial network, while only 250,000 homes, in highly urban districts, are IPTV subscribers.

Eutelsat's two-yearly TV Reception Barometer, produced in collaboration with Ipsos, is an extensive multi-national analysis of TV reception modes and trends. The market research in Italy was carried out from September 2012 to November 2012 via face-to-face interviews.