The French pay-TV operator Canal+ will introduce a special ‘weekend subscription’ this autumn to test the waters for such a product.
Speaking in an interview with Le Monde, CEO Bertrand Méheut said the subscription will cost around €15 a month, about half the usual price. The viewer will receive a window from Friday evening until late Sunday night.
Méheut also said there are at the moment 6.2 million households subscribing to either the Canal+ or the CanalSat bouquet, out of a potential of 26 million homes. Churn rate is 10.6% amongst people who have subscribed for at least a year.
He expects continued growth for both Canal+ and CanalSat, though perhaps a bit more for the latter. The past few years have seen a net increase of about 300,000 subscribers annually, but this might slow down due to economic circumstances.
Commenting on the launch of the Canal+ subsidiary in Vietnam, which is due to make its debut in the autumn, Méheut said he expects the service to secure a million subscribers by 2012. He estimates the total potential audience in the country to be around six million, who can afford to buy a pay-TV service.
On the possible acquisition of the Spanish Digital+ platform, he commented that while the 2 million subscribers base is an interesting asset, there are no new developments.
