SES: UK leads UHD TV ownership in Europe

By Barry Flynn, Contributing Editor

UK penetration of Ultra High Definition (UHD) TV displays is higher in the UK than either Germany, France or Spain – according to the results from satellite operator SES’s latest Satellite Monitor research for year-end 2014.

SES recorded UHD TV ownership of 1% of TV homes in Germany, 3% in France and Spain, and 4% in UK.

Slightly puzzlingly, there appeared to be no correlation between awareness of UHD and UHD TV set take-up across the four territories surveyed.

SES found that the country with the lowest penetration of UHD sets, Germany, had the highest proportion of TV homes that had heard about UHD: 44% of all TV homes or 16.95m.

Meanwhile, the country with the lowest UHD awareness – Spain, with 26% of TV homes or 4.50m – had the second-highest UHD TV set take-up alongside France.

SES did record that the UK had the highest proportion of satellite households watching HD channels, however, suggesting that there might be a link related to consumer preferences for high-resolution TV (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1: UHD TV set ownership and UHD awareness (% TV HHs)

* as a proportion of DTH HHs

Source: SES

UK broadcaster Andrew Neil, who gave the opening keynote at the SES event where the results of its research were first announced, was upbeat about the prospects for UHD in the UK, declaring that “the impact will be huge. 3D is over, the way is 4k. It will become the must-have.” Neil said he believed the migration would be “potentially as big as the rise of Sky and of the conversion to colour TV”, predicting that “it will give the main screen a whole new lease of life.”

Other results from SES included the fact that terrestrial reception of TV across Europe had declined since the end of 2010 from 83.71m HHs to 68.97m at the end of last year, and looks set to fall below cable TV penetration for the first time in 2015. Currently, terrestrial TV reception in Europe is only just above cable’s, which stood at 67.98m homes at the end of 2014.

DTH has risen steadily over the period, with 90.03m homes now receiving TV by satellite in the European territories surveyed.* The majority, 52%, are free-to-air households, with 40% subscribing to a paid-for satellite service.

Meanwhile, in the last year, HD satellite TV reception has overtaken SD, the SES research shows. At the end of 2013, HD reception was in 38.34m homes and SD in 47.86m. Last year, take-up of the two satellite reception modes switched: there are now 47.18m HD-receiving DTH homes against 42.84 SD-receiving ones. 52% of European satellite homes are now watching HD.

* 30 out of 35 countries included in the Monitor were updated at YE2014