Investment in Norway’s cable infrastructure contributed towards a 14% increase in fourth quarter revenues at Telenor Broadcast. The division reported NOK2,160 million in revenue on EBITDA of NOK389m.
Canal Digital has invested heavily in the upgrade of its Norwegian cablenet, adding an additional 18,000 subscribers to its cable internet product. Increased hardware sales were also a factor to both cable and DTH subscribers.
The increase in ARPU has been able to compensate in part for a 12,000 reduction in DTH subscribers in the highly competitive Scandinavian media landscape. Canal Digital closed 2008 with 1,113,000 DTH subscribers across the region. Cable added 5,000 new households to take its total to 746,000; the cable internet product has a total of 188,000 subscribers.
Higher sales and marketing expenses put pressure on EBITDA, which fell to NOK121 million against NOK128 million in Q4 2007. Revenues in the Canal Digital Group came in at NOK1,690.
Transmission and Encryption increased its revenues from NOK530m in Q4 2007 to NOK602m in 2008 as the segment benefitted from the increased capacity on the Thor 5 satellite and the best ever quarter from conditional access provider Conax.