Sweden’s decision this week to reallocate the 700MHz spectrum band from broadcasting to mobile services from 2017 is the latest in a litany of setbacks for digital terrestrial TV (DTT) in Europe, which suggests that the tide has turned against it on that continent. This has been happening for two years, evidenced by an overall drop of 13% in the number of subscriptions to paid-for DTT services in 2013, according to figures from IHS. In the same year, plans for pay-DTT services in Spain and Portugal were dropped, while existing services have ceased in Italy and France. In several smaller European countries the development of a financially successful model for pay-DTT is proving problematic. Meanwhile free DTT has also fared…