Television goes digital, the end of analogue television is just a matter of time since cable companies finally seem to successfully promote digital television, and the Dutch government already plans to pull the plug from analogue terrestrial television. The decision of the Dutch cable-TV companies to offer a digital television service at no extra cost to their customer base of analogue subscribers, was a crucial response to KPN’s threat when the company introduced a digital terrestrial service last year. Some cable companies even went further: they provide the required digital decoder for free, which boosts the uptake, and not unimportantly, paves the way for selling additional packages and hence increase revenues. Although digital satellite TV and digital terrestrial TV compete with the cable companies, they also enlarge the television broadcast market as a significant part of satellite and digital terrestrial subscribers keep their cable-TV connection.
