Digital TV sets date
DF1 to debut on German cable in Oct.
Media giants the Kirch Group and Bertelsmann unit CLT-UFA, both shareholders in pay TV web Premiere, announced last week that Kirch's DF1 would be absorbed by Premiere as early as January of next year.
DF1 currently has 50,000 digital subscribers, while only 20,000 of Premiere's 1.5 million households are equipped with digital decoders. Until now, only homes equipped with satellite dishes have been able receive digital TV in Germany.
A recent agreement with cable gatekeeper Deutsche Telekom AG will soon make it possible for Germany's 16.5 million cable households to subscribe to digital pay TV.
DF1 managing director Gottfried Zmeck said he expects DF1 to sign on as many as 200,000 new subscribers when cable systems open up next month. Zmeck also announced the addition of a new theme channel, Science Fiction, to the DF1 platform. Along with DF1's other specialty channels, Science Fiction will join the Premiere platform following the approval of the merger by antitrust authorities.
In a related development, Beta Research announced at the IFA on Sunday that the Applied Programming Interfaces (API) access system for the D-Box digital decoder will be made available to other software developers starting next year. Beta Research, a subsidiary of the Kirch Group, developed the technology for the D-Box decoder used by subscribers of DF1. Starting in October, the D-Box will also become the standard digital set-top box of pay TV web Premiere. Currently, Finnish electronics company Nokia, which manufactures the D-Box, has an exclusive license for the D-Box's API.
'Momopolize' access?
Since the announcement of the cooperation between DF1 and Premiere, pubcasters ARD and ZDF have protested that the Kirch Group and CLT-UFA are attempting to "monopolize" access to digital cable systems. ARD has launched a digital version of itself at the IFA, but ARD officials complain that while its digital programs can be received by Kirch's decoder, its onscreen menu does not function with the D-Box.
To reassure the pubcasters and other third parties interested in starting their own digital channels, Beta Research has offered to open its API in 1998.
As part of an agreement to develop the digital cable market in Germany, CLT-UFA and Deutsche Telekom will take stakes in Kirch's Beta Research.
Despite the demands of ARD and ZDF that they be allowed to join the firm as well, Kirch managing director Dieter Hahn said in a recent interview that the pubcasters will not be invited to take shares in Beta Research.
"ARD and ZDF aren't investing in digital television to the extent that we and Bertelsmann are," said Hahn. "To ask to be given a say in a company without paying is not logical."
