Digital television in Turkey
Encyclopedia
Pay-TV Services
Current Pay-TV services in TurkeyTurkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
are Digiturk
Digiturk
Digiturk is a Turkish Satellite television provider, founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They offer, both national cable TV channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is also the current owner of the broadcasting rights of...
, D-Smart, TeleDünya
Teledünya
Teledünya is a Turkish digital cable TV service that was founded on November 1, 2008 by Turksat. It also provides internet by the same cable.-Channel list:...
and Türksat KabloTV.
First Digital Transmissions
The first digital televisionDigital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
transmissions in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
were made by the Uzan
Uzan
Uzan may refer to:*traveling musicians in Western Asia, see Ashik*Uzan, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a village in France*Uzan River, in France*The Dutch abbreviation of the Union of South American Nations *Cem Uzan, a Turkish business man and politician...
Group with Turkey's first television channel Star TV. As they were on the lead with their channels Star, TeleOn and Kral, the Uzan Group launched Star Digital on Turksat
Turksat
Turksat Satellite Communication and Cable TV Operation AS is the only satellite operator company in Turkey. It was founded as a government company...
in late 1999. In 2003 the platform's name was changed as DigiFun Club, but it has been taken down.
Turkey's first Pay-TV service was CINE5
Cine5
Cine5 is the first subscription based television channel in Turkey. It was aired encrypted and primarily broadcast feature movies when it was founded on September 20, 1993. Subscribers were required to buy a decoder to watch the channel. The number of subscribers reached over half a million...
by MultiCanal owned by Erol Aksoy. CINE5
Cine5
Cine5 is the first subscription based television channel in Turkey. It was aired encrypted and primarily broadcast feature movies when it was founded on September 20, 1993. Subscribers were required to buy a decoder to watch the channel. The number of subscribers reached over half a million...
was launched in late 1994. It held the rights to the latest movie premieres, series and especially sports such as the Turkish Football League. In 2000, CINE5
Cine5
Cine5 is the first subscription based television channel in Turkey. It was aired encrypted and primarily broadcast feature movies when it was founded on September 20, 1993. Subscribers were required to buy a decoder to watch the channel. The number of subscribers reached over half a million...
launched CINE+Digital on Turksat with some specialty channels, but again in 2003 this platform was taken down as well.
Digiturk
Turkey's first and leading digital platform is DigiturkDigiturk
Digiturk is a Turkish Satellite television provider, founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They offer, both national cable TV channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is also the current owner of the broadcasting rights of...
. It was launched in 1999 and owned by Çukurova
Çukurova
Çukurova , historically known as Cilicia, is a geographic, economic and cultural region in south-central Turkey, covering the provinces of Mersin, Adana, Osmaniye and Hatay...
Group. Digiturk
Digiturk
Digiturk is a Turkish Satellite television provider, founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They offer, both national cable TV channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is also the current owner of the broadcasting rights of...
was a lot more professional and had a lot of advantages over the other platforms as Star Digital and CINE+Digital. Digiturk
Digiturk
Digiturk is a Turkish Satellite television provider, founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They offer, both national cable TV channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is also the current owner of the broadcasting rights of...
has the rights of airing the main sports' live coverage in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
with its channel Lig TV. Digiturk is tranmitted to the air via Eutelsat 7 East satellite with the usage of Turksat
Turksat
Turksat Satellite Communication and Cable TV Operation AS is the only satellite operator company in Turkey. It was founded as a government company...
42 East satellite. There are the options with its own receiver or the subscription with module and card for Eutelsat 7. Digiturk
Digiturk
Digiturk is a Turkish Satellite television provider, founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They offer, both national cable TV channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is also the current owner of the broadcasting rights of...
has recently launched HD channels of itself such as Lig TV HD, MovieMax HD, EuroSport HD
Eurosport HD
On 25 May 2008, a HD simulcast version of the main channel launched - the first event covered in HD being the 2008 French Open at Roland Garros.-Launch:...
, National Geographic HD, SporMax HD and İZ HD.
D-Smart
Turkey's second digital platform is D-Smart owned by the Dogan HoldingDogan Holding
Doğan Holding is one of the top industrial conglomerates in Turkey operating in the energy, media, industry, trade, insurance and tourism industries...
. Actually, the first HD television broadcasts were carried out by the Dogan Holding
Dogan Holding
Doğan Holding is one of the top industrial conglomerates in Turkey operating in the energy, media, industry, trade, insurance and tourism industries...
with the two channels Kanal D
Kanal D
Kanal D is a nation-wide television channel in Turkey and part of Doğan Holding which is owned by the Turkish media tycoon Aydın Doğan.Kanal D also runs an international channel, Euro D which is available online....
HD and Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
HD on their D-Smart platform. Currently, there are some HD channels via D-Smart which are Discovery HD, EuroSport HD, HD Smart, Kanal D HD and Star TV HD. Recently, D-Smart has had some deals with Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
's MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
Group, MCD
MCD
-Entertainment:*MCD Productions, an Irish event promoter*Michael Clarke Duncan, African-American actor-Historical:*Monument Class Description, a synthesis and summary of the archaeological evidence for a British ancient monument*1400 in Roman numerals-Physics:...
and the channels of SinemaTV, SinemaTV 2, SinemaTV Aile and SinemaTV HD have begun to be transmitted to the air firstly by D-Smart. D-Smart uses Turksat 42 East for the transmissions.
Teledünya (Cable service)
Cable network is renamed as TeledünyaTeledünya
Teledünya is a Turkish digital cable TV service that was founded on November 1, 2008 by Turksat. It also provides internet by the same cable.-Channel list:...
which has some HD channels at the moment also called as National Geographic HD and EuroSport HD. Lately the cable network has had some deals with Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
's MTV Network Group, MCD
MCD
-Entertainment:*MCD Productions, an Irish event promoter*Michael Clarke Duncan, African-American actor-Historical:*Monument Class Description, a synthesis and summary of the archaeological evidence for a British ancient monument*1400 in Roman numerals-Physics:...
, and French television provider ABSAT. Teledünya is expected to carry out new television channels more than 100 in the following months of 2009. Teledünya broadcasts via the cable network around the country but it is not available largely which blocks the system from reaching every part of the land.