Miguel Sebastián, Minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce said by the end of this month there would be some 250,000 equipments for payment over DTT on the market. "An important part of it will come from Spanish manufacturers," he said.

But this figure doesn't coincide with some critical voices from this sector and the political oposition who have criticized the speed with which this measure has been approved, together with the lack of boxes in the market. In defence of the law the Minister added the benefit of the new law now officially approved means some €5,000 million for the whole market in the next four years.

For the moment only one TV channel is broadcasting via pay-DTT: Mediapro's Gol TV. So far it was only distributed in the pay TV operators such as Sogecable's Digital+ or Telefónica's Imagenio because they also distribute the DTT channels on their networks.

The law is opposed by Prisa's audiovisual group Sogecable which was said to be pressing the oposition political parties to vote against it because it threatens the dominance of Canal+ and Digital+. Canal+ was Spain's first and only pay TV channel allowed by law twenty years ago. After came the pay TV operators, but Canal+ has largely retained its dominance.

Some manufacturers are also being damaged by user confusion as some media groups are claiming that if homes don't have a pay-DTT box they won't be able to get DTT signals, which is not true. So the manufacturers association is thinking of taking some action to save their interests.

© Rapid TV News 2009