German cable operator Tele Columbus has reported another decline in its TV customer base in the third quarter of 2025, underscoring the prolonged impact of the cable fee reform more than a year after its introduction.
While the company continued to grow its broadband business, shrinking TV subscriber numbers again weighed on revenues and operating earnings.
Tele Columbus ended Q3 2025 with 1.06 million TV households, a 4.9% year-on-year decrease. The latest drop comes after a far steeper correction in 2024, when the removal of cable TV subscription fees from ancillary rental costs triggered a mass migration from wholesale cable contracts to individual subscriptions.
In Q3 2024, the company’s TV base had fallen 40.4% year on year to 1.1 million households after the regulatory change took effect. One year later, the figure edged down further to 1.06 million, indicating that the most dramatic phase of the migration is over, but the customer base continues to erode as individual contracts fail to fully replace lost bulk agreements.
Broadband remained the company’s strongest performer. Tele Columbus increased its internet customer base in Q3 2025 to 730,000 subscribers, up 7.3% year on year. Revenue in the internet and telephony segment rose 10.6% to €59.2 million in the quarter, supported by demand for faster connections – around half of all new customers chose speeds of 500Mbps or higher.
Group revenue for the first nine months of 2025 came in at €317.7 million, a 2.2% decline compared with the same period in 2024. Higher broadband revenue only partially compensated for lower TV income.
Normalised EBITDA fell 5.4% to €133.9 million, still reflecting the tail-end effects of the bulk TV migration. Reported EBITDA, however, improved 1.9% to €107.5 million, as restructuring-related one-off expenses were lower than in 2024.
The figures illustrate an ongoing transition: broadband is expanding steadily, but TV revenues continue to decline, albeit at a slower pace than the dramatic drop seen in 2024. Tele Columbus says the TV market remains “challenging” as the shift from wholesale payment models to direct customer relationships continues to reshape the German cable TV landscape.
