MinDig TV - the most dynamically growing television service in Hungary in the first five months of 2011 - MinDig TV Extra delivered the highest growth rate among the wireless digital television servic

The number of MinDig TV digital terrestrial television service users increased by over 52,000 in the period of January-May 2011, thus the service offering 7 free-to-air digital television and 4 radio channels – which can be received with a proper rooftop or indoor antenna – was used by more than 220,000 households at the end of May. Using the flash report data of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority, it can be said that the digital terrestrial television platform grew most dynamically in Hungary during the above period. The number of MinDig TV Extra – digital terrestrial pay-tv service – subscribers doubled during the first five months of the year and it had grown to nearly 30,000 by the end of May. Thereby MinDig TV Extra achieved the highest growth rate among the wireless digital television services.

The number of MinDig TV digital terrestrial television service users increased by over 52,000 in the period of January-May 2011, thus the service offering 7 free-to-air digital television and 4 radio channels – which can be received with a proper rooftop or indoor antenna – was used by more than 220,000 households at the end of May. Using the flash report data of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority, it can be said that the digital terrestrial television platform grew most dynamically in Hungary during the above period.

The digitalization process is therefore faster on the terrestrial platform than in the cable segment, where the increase in the number of digital subscriptions fell short of the above figure. This is an outstanding result in view of the fact that on the cable platform there are more than 1.2 million, while on the terrestrial one there are only about 700,000 analogue television households to convert to the digital service.

At the same time, the number of MinDig TV Extra – digital terrestrial pay-tv service – subscribers doubled during the first five months of the year and it had grown to nearly 30,000 by the end of May. Thereby MinDig TV Extra – with a total of 18 television programs in its package – achieved the highest growth rate among the wireless digital television services according to the monthly statistics published by the National Media and Infocommunications Authority. This outstanding result was enabled partly by the extremely effective advertisement campaign launched in April, which presented the new advertisement concept of Antenna Hungária in a funny way – featuring a famous Hungarian actor, Péter Rudolf – with the following main slogan ‘Everything that you need and nothing that you don’t’.

Based on the DVB-T platform monitoring survey made by Ipsos, the awareness of the digital terrestrial television services continued to increase as a result of the advertisement campaigns and about 82% of Hungarian households have heard about MinDig TV, while some 53% of the households know about the MinDig TV Extra service which was introduced to the market about one year ago

Based on its licences and contracts in place Antenna Hungária invests a total of 25 billion forints in the course of the digital switchover. In the second half of the year Antenna Hungária continues the development of its free-to-air and pay-tv digital terrestrial television services, to which end it has started preparations for the utilization of the multiplex ‘B’ – currently used in and around Budapest for DVB-H test broadcasting – for the purpose of DVB-T, but the change is subject to an approval by the National Media and Infocommunications Authority as well.

Thanks to MinDig TV service, the free-to-air digital television reception possibility is available for 95% of the population at present, which ratio will continue to increase after putting the new digital sites into service by the end of the year. AH hopes to register a continued increase in the popularity of MinDig TV and MinDig TV Extra services replacing analogue terrestrial broadcasting as we are approaching the analogue terrestrial television networks’ switch-off which is scheduled to take place next year. AH expects the number of MinDig TV users to double by the end of the year in comparison to the number recorded at the end of the previous year, to about 350,000 as a result of the autumn and Christmas campaigns.

Antenna Hungária

Further information:
Antenna Hungária
András Tóth, Head of Communication

Tel: +36 1 464-2110

E-mail: totha [kukac] ahrt [pont] hu




About Antenna Hungária (www.ahrt.hu)
About MinDig TV (www.mindigtv.hu)
About MinDig TV Extra (www.mindigtvextra.hu)