The internet provided a welcome boost for Telenor’s Broadcast division in the second quarter.
The higher penetration of additional services for Canal Digital Group’s Norwegian cable operations helped increase revenues by NOK 4,000 million (€447.5 million) to NOK 1,637 million.
Although 12,000 new cable TV internet access subscriptions were added, with the total reaching 216,000, some 7,000 net cable subscriptions were terminated and 17,000 lost on the DTH satellite platform.
Norway again delivered growth in the number cable internet subscribers, boosting the total by 13,000. Sweden was not so fortunate, with a fall in the number of basic subscribers. Nevertheless, among cable subscribers ARPU has climbed by 19% year-on-year as a result both of increased internet take-up and growth in pay-TV. 42% of cable subs having at least one decoder.
One of the challenges effecting both Canal Digital and rival Viasat has been the maturity of the digital markets in the Nordic region, with all the four local markets well into digital switchover and already completed in Sweden and Finland.
As of June 30, 2009, Canal Digital held 732,000 cable subscribers and 1,079,000 DTH subscribers.
Revenues from Transmission & Encryption increased due to higher revenues from satellite transmission. However, this was offset by lower revenues from the terrestrial transmission sector in the wake of analogue switch-off, and the conditional access company Conax, which has been hit by the global recession.
Total operating profit within Telenor Broadcast was NOK291 million.
Scandinavian DTH Subscriber Progress
Jun 30, 2009 Mar 30, 2009 Dec 31, 2008 Sep 30, 2008 Jun 30, 2008
Canal Digital Premium 865,000 882,000 897,000 912,000 920,000
Canal Digital Basic 214,000 214,000 216,000 213,000 201,000
Total Canal Digital 1,079,000 1,096,000 1,113,000 1,125,000 1,121,000
Viasat
Premium 778,000 760,000 754,000 740,000 739,000
(Premium DTH) 666,000 666,000 676,000 679,000 688,000
(Premium IPTV) 112,000 94,000 78,000 61,000 51,000
Multiroom 186,000 177,000 170,000 159,000 151,000
ViasatPlus 127,000 122,000 115,000 103,000 95,000
Viasat Basic 55,000 62,000 69,000 76,000 82,000
NB. Neither Canal Digital or Viasat break down subscriber numbers into the individual countries of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland
Source: Telenor/Modern Times Group
Leave a Reply