Telewizja Puls – the third largest commercial television in Poland – and Emitel have entered into a new agreement on broadcasting the broadcaster’s programmes on the second multiplex of the terrestrial digital television. The agreement has been concluded for a period of 10 years and covers the broadcasts of TV Puls and PULS 2.
The agreement was signed in a breakthrough moment for terrestrial digital television. All over Europe, the process of transferring TV broadcasts to new bandwidth is now coming to an end. In Poland, this operation will be completed by mid-2022. At the same time, the broadcasting standard will be changed to the new, much more efficient DVB-T2/HEVC standard. The agreement concluded by the companies concerns broadcasting two nationwide channels of the broadcaster, and takes account of necessary technical modifications as part of the process of refarming the 700MHz band and switching to the new signal emission and encoding system.
“Terrestrial television is a very important platform for distribution of our channels, and we do our best to provide our viewers with undisturbed, premium quality viewing experience” – said Dariusz Dąbski, President of the Board of Telewizja Puls.
Terrestrial Digital Television is a very popular platform to receive television in Poland, and viewers can watch 29 channels free of charge, including highly popular channels: TV Puls and PULS 2. A change in the broadcasting and encoding standard in terrestrial television will enable the broadcasters to develop their programme offer, and the viewers will be able to enjoy all broadcasts in HD.
“We are glad we have concluded a new agreement, and the prospect of cooperation for the decade to come is, in my opinion, a sign of our customer’s unwavering trust in Emitel. Terrestrial television in Poland has been and will be the leading platform for content distribution. A change in broadcasting standard in 2022 will significantly improve the quality of receipt of linear broadcasts, and thanks to the development of broadband Internet and HbbTV technology, broadcasters will be able to combine multimedia contents with TV broadcasts and offer the viewers interactive TV applications, additional contents and functions during live TV broadcasts” – said Andrzej J. Kozłowski, President of the Board of Emitel S.A.
Throughout Europe, terrestrial television used the frequency range of 470 – 790 MHz for broadcasts. In accordance with the European Commission Decision, all Member States must free up the 700 MHz for the needs of 5G network construction by mobile operators. This means it is necessary to reconstruct the broadcasting network and transfer terrestrial TV broadcasts in Poland to frequencies other than those currently used. In Poland, market regulatory authorities decided that the project be divided into stages and be completed in June, 2022. By that time, broadcasting standard will have been switched to DVB-T2 /HEVC. Compared to currently applied standard (DVB-T/MPEG-4), DVB-T2/HEVC enables more efficient use of the frequency and a significant improvement in the quality of terrestrial television channel broadcasts.