French Switch

French representatives of the consumers electronics industry (Simavelec) are pleasantly surprised as this has never happened with any product before. Interestingly, DTT penetration has surpassed DVD receivers, which up to now had the record of fastest penetration of equipment in French households. What is more, the simplest and cheapest receivers (which perform poorly) only represent 3 per cent of the sales, while the most sophisticated ones reach 13 per cent.

A couple of years ago DTT in France had a bad image. Why this success? First, the realisation that DTT has done very well in the UK, Italy and Germany has partly removed the uncertainty and made manufacturers optimistic about sales prospects. France is also one of the poorest markets in Europe in terms of free-to-air television, something which increases the potential demand for DTT. DTT now allows for the reception of 14 free-to-air channels and one should expect penetration to keep growing once subscription channels (Canal +, AB1, Eurosport, LCI, Paris Premi�re, TF6, TPS Star) become available in September 2005. And, clearly, the marketing: the French platform is called TNT which stands for �T�l�vision Num�rique Terrestre� and �Televisi�n Num�rique pour Tous� (for all), as it has been branded. The number of websites that provide consumer information about TNT is really impressive. Finally, prices for the receivers range from about as little as 60 � to 180 � for the more advanced boxes.

Nothing new, really. Once manufacturers finally start producing at big scale, content that people want is made available and there is an efficient marketing strategy, then consumer demand is simply the best driver.