Viewers across Germany will continue receiving all standard definition channels from RTL Deutschland, one of the leading private broadcasters in Germany, after the media firm renewed its SD distribution agreement with satellite operator SES.
The deal means that the company’s complete free TV channel package will continue to be available via SES’s ASTRA satellites at the key orbital location of 19.2 degrees East, which reaches 118 million TV homes across Europe. All broadcasts will be transmitted in the MPEG-2 SD format until 2024 and the channel line-up includes RTL, VOX, ntv, NITRO, RTLplus, SUPER RTL, TOGGO plus and RTLZWEI, as well as a number of regional programmes. New channel VOXup, which was launched on 1 December 2019, is also part of the agreement.Commenting on the deal, Andre Prahl, head of programme distribution of Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland said: “With this new agreement, we are ensuring that our free TV stations retain their high reach via satellite and can continue to offer the free-to-air programme portfolio in SD quality via satellite to our viewers.”
“This agreement reemphasises that SD is an important distribution platform for the foreseeable future in German,” added Christoph Mühleib, managing director of ASTRA Deutschland GmbH. “We are pleased to continue supporting Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland to deliver this service.”
