Advertising-free and individual: digital television on the rise
Digital television services such as pay-TV, HDTV, and Internet TV are on the rise in Switzerland. This is according to a Swisscom study. The main reasons are: personalized program selection, high picture quality, and the absence of commercials.
The number of Swiss people using digital television services such as pay channels, HDTV and internet television is growing steadily. Overall, the need for a more targeted and individualized use of television is becoming apparent. This is the result of a recently published representative survey on television and Internet habits conducted by the Link Institute on behalf of Swisscom, which found that over 20 percent of respondents in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland now make use of a digital pay-TV service. For 75% of respondents, it is important or very important to be able to put together their own program; in the last comparable study in 2005, this only applied to 59%. Another reason is that around 60% of respondents prefer to watch commercial-free programs, compared to 45% of respondents in 2005.
New media such as television on the computer, IPTV and HDTV are also attracting increasing interest. While 17% of respondents already use one of the new technologies and see them as an enrichment, almost 40% are interested but still want to find out more. Only 8% of those surveyed feel put off by the wide range of options.
Picture quality in particular seems to be a key factor for digital television: it is very important to almost 80% of respondents. Accordingly, more than half said that they own a set equipped for receiving high-definition television (HDTV) or that they would look for it when buying their next television set.
