Ferdinand Kayser, CCO at Luxembourg-based SES, speaking at IBC, said the satellite operator sees “steady momentum” and an accelerated uptake of Ultra HD broadcasts leading to an expected 220 UHD channels over Europe
by 2025.
Kayser was launching an SES white paper on UHD which confirmed that 2015 has seen significant breakthrough with the number of channels either on air or about to launch. “Demos, content, high-technical standards, devices and the delivery infrastructure are now falling into place,” he added.
Kayser said that UHD display sales were happily being bought by consumers, helped by rapidly falling prices, and would reach some 200 million units globally by 2018.“Buyers are already exposed to content from the internet and movies, and we expect there will be more than 1000 channels on air by 2025.”
He quoted data that stated the US would have some 300 UHD channels by 2025, and around 220 over Europe.
As to display sales, the white paper confirms that UHD units already account for 13% of all TV shipments in 2015 (31 million units) and nearly half of all 50-inch and larger sets.By 2017 more than 90% of all UHD unit sales will be 50-inch or above.
Kayser highlighted ‘Fashion One’ which went on air on 1 September over Europe and North America, but also noted ‘pearl tv’, an all-UHD shopping channel now broadcasting over Europe, and the upcoming launch for North America of ‘High 4K’ that goes live next week.
SES is also about to broadcast ‘Insight’, a new UHD channel from TV Entertainment Reality Network, which goes live in October, as well as SES’ own HD+ demo channel already on air.
SES 1.B51
