Released on: January 18, 2008, 2:47 am

Press Release Author: Aileen Brucal

Industry: Telecommunications

Press Release Summary: InfoCom\'s 2Q07 Quarterly Monitoring Service concerning TV
markets in Western Europe

Press Release Body: According to the newest edition of TV Markets Quarterly
Monitoring from InfoCom, the independent market analyst specialist, during 2Q07,
most of the television viewers in Western Europe still prefer receiving television
service over terrestrial platform. Viewing programmes using this platform does not
cost as much as rival platforms. In Greece, Italy, Spain, France, the UK, Portugal
and Finland, terrestrial or free-to-air TV viewers represent between 51% and 91% of
the total TV market as of 1H07, according to InfoCom. In most of these countries,
both analogue and digital TV are often free of charge or at a low cost, hence, many
are still watching through this type of reception.

CaTV and satellite are, instead, the preferred platforms by TV watchers in Austria,
Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. In these countries, free-to-air TV
represents less than 10% of the total viewing audience. These countries represent
markets, which are traditionally highly "cabled", where often CaTV subscriptions are
already integrated into standard charges for flats, for instance, and CaTV services
are a sort of commodity, therefore, people are traditionally used to a pay-TV
service. In the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium, the share of CaTV on total TV
watchers is exceptionally high - between 82% and 86% whereas satellite television is
the most popular TV platform in Austria where 53% of the total TV viewers (around
1.9m) prefer to watch TV through a satellite dish.

The penetration of IPTV services shows very different dynamics. Increasing IPTV
service take-up is most evident in Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway,
Spain and Sweden where IPTV subscriptions represent between 1% and 7% of the total
TV audience. The IPTV subscriber base in these countries, as a group, reached over
3.3m in June 2007, or over 94% of the total IPTV market in Western Europe. In other
countries, especially the highly cabled" ones, the uptake of IPTV is more difficult
due to the strong competition of CaTV services, already well established, bundled in
triple play with voice and Internet access.

Please visit http://www.infocom-de.com/pressarchives/press_160108.html in order to
see the graph

About TV Quarterly Monitoring: the TV Quarterly Monitoring is currently available on
a yearly subscription basis. It provides a large amount of indicators - among which
market TV watcher broken down by CaTV, satellite, IPTV and terrestrial; DSL, cable
modem and FTTx subscribers; all figures broken down by carrier - for a large number
of countries with forecasts until 2012.
TV Quarterly Monitoring is only one of several Quarterly Monitoring Services that
InfoCom provides. To know more, please contact us.

About InfoCom
InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with almost 20 years experience
providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the
telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries. InfoCom's independent and
fact-based analyses highlight trends and opportunities, supporting decision makers
to understand market dynamics in order to improve their competitive advantage.
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Web Site: http://infocom-de.com

Contact Details: InfoCom GmbH, Rotebuehlplatz 21, 70178 Stuttgart, Germany, Phone:
+49 711 870510-39, Fax: +49 711 870510-10