Europe may be flush with television sets — with a penetration of 18 percent of the region’s 165 million TV households at the end of 2007 — but HD content is not readily available to watch, according to a new Screen Digest study.

The report reveals a “content gap,” with less than 1 percent of homes with HD units, representing about 1 million, actually equipped with a high-definition set-top box and subscription package. According to Screen Digest, there are about 100 HD channels in Europe currently, with the bulk available on satellite platforms. The only market to have already launched HD on free-to-air digital terrestrial TV is Sweden. France and the UK are likely to follow suit in the short term, the report states.

This situation is not expected to be much better by 2012 with only 20 percent of the 85 percent of European households with HD displays actually watching in high definition. HD will near critical mass by 2015, the report continues.

“In the next five years, HDTV will remain little more than a pay-TV product in Europe — primarily on satellite,” states Vincent Létang, a senior analyst at Screen Digest and author of the report. “Analogue switch-off, which will happen between 2010 and 2012, will free up bandwidth capacity on the digital terrestrial platform and will kick-start the next phase of growth in HD TV. HDTV will become the mainstream and ultimately the standard form of free television around the middle of the next decade. In ten years time, nobody will ever refer to ‘high definition‚’ because HD will be everywhere.”