So - Eutelsat has finally broken its silence about its role in the creation of a second French Freesat platform. The Eutelsat free-to-air satellite platform will launch in June, dubbed ‘FRANSAT’ - in competition with the Canal Plus-operated SES Astra-delivered TNTSat.

As we noted here, it was something of a mystery why Eutelsat, which has traditionally offered analogue re-transmission via Atlantic Bird 3 at 5° West degrees to France’s terrestrial blackspots, had kept so quiet about its plans to convert this installed base to digital - and left it so long. As a result, SES Astra has made hay while the sun shines, and its TNTSat service now claims around a million customers.

In a press release this morning, Eutelsat notes that the majority of France’s 18 free-to-air DTT channels are already transmitting from Atlantic Bird 3: by simply buying new kit comprising a digital decoder and access card, existing homes with dishes pointing to this location will be able to pull in the complete DTT offering in two months’ time, including the four HD DTT channels (TF1 HD, France 2 HD, Arte HD and M6 HD) which began broadcasting last autumn.

On sale for €99 euros, the non-proprietary FRANSAT decoders will be available at retail from multiple suppliers.

On the face of it, the offer is an attractive one for those analogue Atlantic Bird subs who have not already elected to take the rival TNTSat service, since customers will not have to pay to have their dishes re-aligned from the Eutelsat bird to the SES Astra one. The question is - how many of those homes are left?