Berlin, Germany at night. Photo: Alexander Steinhof (Flickr)

[Via Satellite 02-18-2015] New research from SES pegged the number of houses receiving HD television in Germany at 17.6 million in 2014, an increase of roughly 24 percent from 2013. The company’s own German HD platform HD+ surpassed 3 million households by the end of 2014, with 1.65 million paying for the service and another 1.4 million using the free-trial period.

SES’ HD+ service provides an HD broadcast platform for 20 main private broadcasters in Germany, along with more than 30 Free-to-Air (FTA) channels. According to the company, more than 10 million German residencies received HD television by satellite in 2014, 6.6 million via cable and 1 million through IPTV. SES’ research shows 18.2 million of 38 million TV households use satellite.