Subscribers to UPC Cablecom will have online access to significantly more channels than their Dutch counterparts when the Horizon platform is launched in Switzerland early next year.
Speaking at the IHS Future of Digital Media Distribution conference in London, Bob Greene, Managing Director Online Entertainment at Liberty Global, said UPC would offer 120 channels compared to the 80 channels available in the Netherlands.
Describing the conversations with Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries and Liberty Media chairman John Malone, Greene said Horizon was a relatively easy sell, given the knowledge that what begins on US cable invariably transfers to the European market three years’ later.
There was evidence of movement in the market as European consumers made their own decisions. “You have to be around long enough to remember when broadcasters dismissed cable, cable dismissed satellite, both dismissed DSL and everyone dismissed YouTube… Linear television is always going to dominate, but its percentage of viewership is in decline.”
Greene told delegates that 10% of UPC Nederland’s digital subscriber base were already using the multuiscreen services associated with Horizon.
