Romania’s DTH market may be about to enter a period of consolidation, with the incumbent telco Romtelecom set to buy Boom TV, a platform operated by the Israeli-owned DTH Television Group, for around €8 million plus VAT.
ZF reports that the telco, which is itself backed by OTE and ultimately Deutsche Telekom, is in negotiations with the Transylvania Insolvency House (CIT).
The latter is acting as a receiver for the DTH Television Group, which has built up debts of over €100 million.
Boom TV has suffered from underinvestment, resulting in a catastrophic loss of subscribers, down by 130,000 in the last two years to today’s total of around 95,000.
Romtelecom was in talks but buy Boom TV two years ago, but after having offered €50 million for the platform decided to withdraw its offer. I
It currently operates in own DTH platform Dolce, which has close to one million subscribers, along with an IPTV service (Dolce Interactiv) and a cable TV business.