Spain’s so-called football wars put pressure on ONO’s television base in the first quarter. The increase in the number of games now available on free-to-air channels took its toll on pay-per-view revenues.
The cablenet has also been dealing with spindown as subscribers look to cheaper options for their television viewing. However, although the monthly fee has been eroded in part, the popularity of triple play has helped to maintain the model, and one-off fees and upsale campaigns have held back erosion.
Quarterly ARPU of €51.9 is down from €53.2 in the fourth quarter, but equal to the €52 of Q1 2008. 46% of customers represent 2 RGUs; 34.2% take television, telephony and broadband internet. Churn fell by 1.5pp to 17.8%, a low for the year.
1,016,000 subscribers receive ONO’s television service, 1,646 telephony and 1,295,000 broadband. While TV has fallen back slightly, growth continues in telephony and broadband.
The company reported profits of €12 million, a 61.4% increase on Q1 2008.
