Register Hardware: Only one in five households in Western Europe own an HD TV today, and while that figure is expected to jump to 85 per cent by 2012, most of us will still be watching standard-definition content.
So claims market watcher Screen Digest, which pinpointed the poor penetration of HD into Europe on a sparsity of free-to-view HD TV channels, especially over terrestrial broadcast networks.
Only Sweden has terrestrially broadcast HD channels, though the UK and France may soon follow suit. That leaves the vast majority of Europe’s 100 HD channels only available through satellite and a much smaller proportion through cable.
Today, only 1.7 per cent of households in Western Europe have the kit to receive and watch HD broadcasts. Come 2012 that figure will have risen to just under 17 per cent.
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