Set-top strategy lifts KDG
February 28, 2007 by Julian Clover
Kabel Deutschland (KDG) has said that its new strategy of offering set-top boxes direct to the customer is beginning to pay off. Germany’s largest cable operator lifted its subscriber base by a further 3.6% to end 2006 on 10.031 million revenue generating units.
Revenues for the nine month period rose by 7% to €813.2 million. However. The company still reported a loss of €26.8 million. The net loss for the financial year 2005/2006 was €76.8m.
“Kabel Deutschland is driving forward the process of cable television digitization. In particular, since we began offering our direct customers free set top boxes, the number of digital households has seen rapid growth,” said Christof Wahl, Speaker of the Management Board of Kabel Deutschland.
At the same time the average revenue per unit has risen by 5.1% from €7.26 during the first nine months of 2005 to €7.26 in the same period in the current financial year. The figures have been boosted by growth in the Kabel Digital Home and Kabel Digital International digital packages.
The number of basic cable access subscribers at the end of the third quarter (December 31, 2006) totalled 9.466 million, compared to 9.585 million at the end of 2005.
Virgin Media adds 38,500 subs in Christmas quarter
February 28, 2007 by Julian Clover
The rebranded Virgin Media has announced its end of year financial results. During a time when NTL and Telewest were still the consumer facing brands, the cablenet added 38,500 net TV subscribers, while 78,100 net broadband customers were also signed up. Churn was reduced to a monthly 1.7% from 1.8% in the previous quarter.
In the fourth quarter to December 31, 2006, gross additions were down slightly to 213,500 from 229,000 in the third quarter. Virgin Media anticipated the fall in the third quarter results, putting it down to a lower level of installations due to the holiday season, but isn’t the Christmas quarter supposed to be the most lucrative for pay-TV operators? Although only available to around half of the country, compare the figures with Freeview’s two million and as yet we don’t know how many households this has actually added to the DTT installed base, and 183,000 net additions to BSkyB.
Fourth quarter revenues increased to £1,081.6 million (€1.6m), an increase of £597m, helped by the merger with Telewest and the Virgin Mobile acquisition.
Meanwhile, the dispute with BSkyB over the carriage of the broadcaster’s basic channels edges towards the March 1 deadline, amid little sign of agreement.
Kupsky named Turner Europe president
February 28, 2007 by Julian Clover
Jeff Kupsky has been named as the new president of Turner Broadcasting System Europe. His remit will cover all of Turner’s television and multiplatform outlets in Europe including Cartoon Network, Boomerang and TCM (Turner Classic Movies), and commercial activities for CNN International. Key responsibilities include overseeing business development, marketing, distribution and public relations, as well as the entertainment channels’ advertising sales, research, operations and programming.
Kupsky replaces Nan Richards who recently chose to step back from her duties after 19 years with the company. He will be based in London and report to Louise Sams, president of Turner Broadcasting System International and executive vice president and general counsel of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Previously formerly executive vice president of Turner Broadcasting System Europe, Kupsky joined Turner in 1981 and is on the board of CNN+ and CNN Turk, CNN’s joint ventures in Spain and Turkey, and Boing, the Italian children’s channel in partnership with Mediaset.
RCS/RDS moves into 3G
February 28, 2007 by Chris Dziadul
Romania’s second largest cable operator RCS/RDS has launched a 3G service. Known as Digi.Tel, it employs equipment supplied by Nokia and will be gradually rolled out across the country. RCS/RDS is paying a total of $35 million (€26.5 million) for its 3G licence in instalments and will compete with services offered by Orange, Vodafone and Telemobil. Besides already having around 1.3 million cable subscribers, RCS/RDS also operates the highly successful DTH platform DigiTV, not just in Romania but also Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. (CD)
CTC Media on the up
February 28, 2007 by Chris Dziadul
The Russian company CTC Media, which is backed Sweden’s Modern Times Group (MTG), saw its revenue jump by 56.2% in 2006 to $370.8 million (€280.8 million). At the same time, its share of the Russian TV ad market – estimated to be worth $3.2 billion in 2006 – rose from 13.6% to 15.6% of the total. CTC Media is one of the best performers in MTG’s growing Central and East European portfolio, which includes interests in Russia, the Baltic Republics, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and – as of earlier this month – Bulgaria. It operates the CTC TV Network, which claimed an audience share of 9% in Q4 2006, and Domashny, a thematic channel aimed at female viewers, which had a 1.5% share in the same quarter. (CD)
Luxembourg agrees digital cable package
February 27, 2007 by Julian Clover
The Luxembourg government has signed an agreement with the country’s cable operators as the country aims to become the first country in Europe to have an all digital TV service. Cablenets in the Grand Dutchy will offer subscribers a selection of 75 international channels.
“This agreement prepares the ground for the switch to an all digital broadcasting system in Luxembourg by Jan. 31 2008,” said a government statement. “Luxembourg will thus be the first country to guarantee access to an all digital TV offer to its citizens.”
The agreement has been signed by SACEM Luxembourg (music rights), ALGOA (producers rtights) and RTL Group affiliate CLT-UFA, representing the broadcasters of the 75 TV channels covered by the agreement, as well as by several cable operators serving together 90% of cable households. The agreement is also open to signature for all other cable operators.
Luxembourg’s 470,000 population went digital last year when analogue terrestrial transmissions were switched off. 90% of households in Luxembourg receive TV by cable.
Abraham named new UKTV CEO
February 27, 2007 by Julian Clover
Former Discovery Channel UK boss David Abraham has been named as the new chief executive of UKTV. He will take-up the role at the BBC Worldwide–Virgin Media Television joint venture in April following the retirement of Dick Emery.
43-year old Abraham is joining from Discovery Networks USA where he has been the executive vice president and general manager for TLC and Discovery Home. Before his time with Discovery he was a founding partner and chief operating officer of advertising agency St Lukes, working with the Labour party, Ikea, Eurostar, Clarkes, HSBC, Boots and Sky Digital.
UKTV’s channels are widely distributed on satellite and cable. They include UKTV Gold, UKTV Drama and UKTV Style. When +1 hour channels are included the broadcaster runs 19 broadcast streams.
BBC Trust backs Freesat
February 27, 2007 by Julian Clover
The BBC trust has given its provisional approval to the launch of the ‘Freesat’ digital satellite platform. It is envisaged that the project would be jointly operated with ITV and Channel 4, both of which are now partners in the Freeview DTT platform.
BSkyB already operates a subscription free satellite platform under the freesatfromsky brand that charges viewers a one-off installation fee of £150. It is likely that the BBC version would use the MHEG-5 middleware already adopted by the Freeview platform rather than the proprietary Open TV. The actual channel line-up is likely to mirror the 120 channels that broadcast in-the-clear on the Sky platform.
The Trust has now opened a 28-day public consultation period ahead of a final decision in April 2007. (JC)
Virgin rejects ‘improved’ Sky offer
February 27, 2007 by Julian Clover
BSkyB has suggested that if it is unable to reach an agreement with Virgin Media over the carriage of its basic channels then it should be allowed direct access to the cable operator’s customers. The proposal is similar to the Sky by Wire service offered to IPTV services in the UK where Sky effectively rents the bandwidth from the operator and maintains its own relationship with the customer. Such scenarios have been commonplace in continental Europe for many years.
Under Sky’s latest proposal the cost to Virgin of carrying a package of basic channels including Sky One, Sky News and Sky Sports News would be set at 90p per subscriber, per month, a reduction of 5p from the broadcaster’s previous offer. However, Virgin said that the new offer failed to remove minimum guarantees that according to Ernie Cormier, chief commercial officer, Virgin Media left the deal exactly the same. Without agreement it seems likely that Virgin will switch off its feed from Sky on March 1.
In a further concession, Sky has agreed to a 16.2p per subscriber reduction in fees for the three channels currently broadcast in the clear on Freeview. BSkyB plans to remove Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three from the DTT service in favour of a four channel pay-TV service.
The 16.2p would only be payable once the channels have left Freeview, which Sky says represents a 19% overall increase from the present contract, in return for the increased investment it says has been put into the channels. (JC)
RCS gets green light on Digicast purchase
February 27, 2007 by Branislav Pekic
Italy’s Antitrust Authority has given its go-ahead for the acquisition by RCS of 51% of Digicast, a company active in the broadcasting of thematic TV channels, principally pay-TV operations over satellite and cable. As a result of the transaction, Digicast will be entirely controlled by RCS. (BP)
