Canal+ grew its subscription portfolio by 40,000 over the past 12 months, the figures combining both the Canal+ premium channel and the CanalSat/TPS satellite platform.
As of September 30, 2008 the total number of subscriptions (individual and collective, France including overseas territories and Africa) reached 10.4 million. The actual increase of 110,000 subscriptions received a negative adjustment of 70,000 to account for the removal of “non-viable contracts”.
More than 90% of the former TPS subscribers have now been transferred to CanalSat on the neighbouring Astra satellite. The cost of the transition in the period is put at €64 million.
EBITA, excluding TPS transition costs, were up €120 million at €685 million, in line with expectations, and parent company Vivendi confirmed its outlook for the rest of the year.
The group’s other operations increased revenues by 18.6% year-on-year, boosted by continued growth in Poland that increased subscriber numbers by 159,000 on September 2007. Broadband TV News estimates this has taken Cyfra+ to 1,109,000 subscribers.
