Viasat continues to suffer subscriber erosion on its Nordic pay-TV business with the added complication of having one of its third party distributors restate volumes.
The Modern Times Group vehicle saw numbers fall from 1,039,000 in Q1 2012 to 1,003,000 in Q1 2013. 45,000 subscribers were lost from its own satellite platform with third party providers slightly compensating.
Viaplay, which offers Viasat content over-the-top continues to enjoy rapid growth, according to MTG, but no detailed figures are being released.
Following a number of distribution agreements signed over the last few months the Danish pay-TV offer has now been extended to cover all of the major free-to-air channels. An exclusive multi-year agreement was signed with BSkyB in February 2013 to distribute the Sky Sports News.
An agreement has also been reached with TV2 in Norway to add the TV 2 Zebra sports and entertainment channel to the Viasat platform from May 2013.
Viasat satellite subscribers will also be able to access TV2 Group’s on-demand library through their internet connected set-top boxes.
The monthly price for Viaplay’s top tier TV, movies and sports package was raised at the beginning of the year in Sweden from SEK 199 to SEK 249, and in Denmark in February from DKK 199 to DKK 229.
Viasat’s Emerging Markets satellite pay-TV platforms added 49,000 net new subscribers y-o-y to 578,000, with the q-o-q performance reflecting the usual seasonal effects following strong subscriber intake in the fourth quarter.
Sales of the Group’s premium package of four HD channels in Russia, Ukraine and the CIS, which commenced at the beginning of December, are progressing according to plan, and the package is already made available on several leading networks in Russia.
