Kabel Deutschland began carrying local television channels on its digital cable network in Bavaria, starting with münchen.tv. The company expected all 16 Bavarian local channels to become available digitally by July 2008 and planned equivalent regional distribution elsewhere in its coverage area.
The rollout was launched at Medientage München by Bavarian state minister Eberhard Sinner, Kabel Deutschland managing director Adrian von Hammerstein, BLM president Wolf-Dieter Ring and münchen.tv managing director Ulrich Gehrhardt.
Distribution framework
Kabel Deutschland developed the distribution model with the 11 state media authorities in its coverage area. The framework defined conditions for carrying local and regional broadcasters digitally.
Customers with a digital receiver could access münchen.tv after running a manual channel scan. The service then appeared in the receiver’s programme list.
Digital channel package
Since April 2007, Kabel Deutschland had expanded its unencrypted digital television package to as many as 100 channels, depending on local network capacity. It included public-service channels and their regional variants, private broadcasters and international-language services. Up to 33 analogue channels remained available in parallel.
Viewers moving from analogue to the digital package required a digital receiver and smartcard, which Kabel Deutschland supplied with its digital cable subscription.