- The new National Technical Plan guarantees the continuity of all the current offer of digital terrestrial television channels of state, regional and local scope, and opens the availability of a new channel.
Madrid, March 25, 2025.- The Council of Ministers today approved a royal decree with the new National Technical Plan for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and measures to boost its technological evolution. The standard establishes the legal and technical framework to introduce into the DTT service of any territorial area (state, autonomous and local) the DVB-T2 transmission technology that will allow the generalization of broadcasts with ultra high definition (UHD) quality.
After the incorporation of the high definition standard, which ended in February 2024, this National DTT Plan promotes a new technological evolution that will allow citizens to enjoy broadcasts with the best quality and DTT providers to compete technologically with other platforms or audiovisual services that use other transmission networks, such as satellite or Internet television.
The DVB-T2 technology, the same that uses most of the emissions of the Member States of the European Union, significantly increases the capacity in each digital multiple and therefore allows a more efficient use of the radio spectrum.
As far as the current DTT channels are concerned, the new National Technical Plan for DTT maintains the same digital terrestrial (multiple digital) television networks and territorial disconnections that existed in the previous Technical Plan, so none of the DTT channels that exist today are lost.
The process established to implement this technological evolution involves the redistribution in the organization of the state-level television channels among the different digital multiple, which makes a part of the capacity of one of the digital multiple free for a new state-level channel, whose license will be put up for tender soon, so that the offer of DTT channels will be expanded.
Technological evolution in two phases
The process will be done in two phases. In the first, the objective is to favor the implementation of the technology and that citizens begin to receive on a regular basis state-wide DTT channels with UHD quality. These UHD channels will broadcast simultaneous content that is already broadcast on other channels, so citizens will not stop receiving any channel or content. Also, in this initial phase, the adaptation of the TV receiver fleet will be carried out to receive DVB-T2 transmission technology and UHD quality broadcasts.
When the terrestrial digital TV receiver fleet is sufficiently adapted, phase 2 will begin, which will involve the global implementation of DVB-T2 technology and UHD quality in all DTT services, both state-wide, regional and local.
To guarantee this gradual adaptation of the receiver fleet, the new National Plan sets specific dates from which receiver equipment that does not receive emissions with these technical standards will not be able to be commercialized in Spain, thus preventing citizens from acquiring equipment that is not adapted to the new technical requirements.