Russia: Tricolor TV Launches Satellite Internet

After one failed attempt to start providing satellite internet services, the National Satellite Company (Tricolor TV brand) decided to enter the market again. Together with the European satellite internet provider Eutelsat Networks, Tricolor TV performed a commercial service launch of two-way satellite internet access. Tricolor TV spokesperson explains that this time the company could successfully overcome the initial diffi culties using modern technologies.

Tricolor TV and Eutelsat Networks launched two-way satellite internet into commercial service with the speeds up to 40 Mbps for forward communication channel and 12 Mbps for the reverse channel. The internet operates in the coverage area of Express-AMU1 satellite (Eutelsat 36C). 

Tricolor TV on a roll

The leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV saw strong growth in 2015 despite the country’s economic problems.

Speaking at CSTB 2016 in Moscow and quoted by ComNews, its general director Alexey Kholodov said the company’s revenues amounted to R14.85 billion (€179.4 million), or 42.7% more than in the previous year, while its subscriber total rose by 881,000 to 11.8 million.

ARPU rose from R998 to R1,315 over them same period.

Meanwhile, the number of subscribers opting for HD services increased by 45% to 6.6 million.

Significantly, among HD subscribers, 30% of new connections in central Russia, rising to almost 50% in Siberia, opted for multiscreen services.

The main drivers for Tricolor TV in 2015 included the introduction of a standardised basic package, along with improved programming such as movies produced by the company.

Furthermore, Tricolor TV added two Ultra HD channels to its offer late in the year.

Tricolor TV also opened a chain of retail shops in almost 100 cities.

Positive outlook for Russian pay-TV

Pay-TV penetration in Russia is set to reach 81% in 2019, by when there will be 45.2 million homes receiving services.

According to data produced by J’son & Partners Consulting and published by Mediasat, the there will be 18.9 million cable TV homes, up from an actual figure of 18.3 million in 2014.

Satellite TV will meanwhile account for 18.5 million homes (14.5 million) and IPTV 7.8 million (4.7 million).

Pay-TV revenues are also set to grow steadily over the next few years, up from R66.5 billion (€1.2 billion) in 2014 to R93.8 billion in 2019. Cable TV will again be in top place (R35.9 billion in 2019, up from R32.5 billion in 2014), followed by satellite TV (R33 billion v R22.5 billion) and IPTV (R24.9 billion v R11.4 billion).

ARPU will also significantly increase over the five-year period, up from R66.5 to R93.8.

Looking at pay-TV market share among the leading players, Tricolor TV was in top spot in 2014 with 29.1% (28.8% in 2013), followed by Rostelecom with 21.1% (21.4%), MTS 7.5% (7.4%), ER Telecom 7% (7.1%) and Orion Express 6.9% (5.6%).

Cable had a 48.8% share of the pay-TV market in 2104 (51.4% in 2013), followed by satellite TV 38.7% (37.3%) and IPTV 12.5% (11.3%).

Boost for HD viewing in Russia

Russia’s Tricolor TV has seen a spectacular growth in the number of its subscribers watching HD services since the launch of the Express-AT1 satellite exactly a year ago.

The latter allowed the operator to launch full-scale broadcasting in Siberia, the Urals and Far East, the result of which has been a 70% increase, equivalent to 150,000 households, in the total in the region.

Express-AT1 has allowed Tricolor TV to broadcast almost four times as many channels as previously and now viewers in Siberia are offered 194, 30 of which are in HD.

In a separate development, the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC) has announced that the Express-AM6 satellite, located at 53 degrees East, is now operational.

Tricolor TV still on a roll

Russia’s leading pay-TV operator Tricolor TV gained 312,300 additional HDTV customers in the first quarter.

The 9% increase in the three months meant it ended March with 4.95 million subscribers, out of a total of over 11.01 million, receiving services in the format.

At the same time, its revenues of R2.7 billion (€50.5 million) in the quarter were 34% higher than in the same period last year.

In the first three months of 2014, over 2.3 million customers renewed their subscriptions to Tricolor TV’s basic services. This was 20% more than the projected figure.
Of this total, 1.86 million opted for the package ‘One’, or ‘Single’.

Almost one in three (30%) of those who renewed were HD subscribers, while 28% and 42% used MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 reception equipment respectively.

The ‘One’ package was introduced this January and as of last month offered viewers 172 TV channels, 32 of which were in HD.

The high level of premium content in Tricolor TV’s basic services has made the latter increasingly popular among its subscribers.

Tricolor TV gives piracy update

Russia’s leading DTH platform Tricolor TV has issued a report of its anti-piracy activities in 2014.

In it, the company says that law enforcement officers prevented attempts to spread pirate smart cards and malicious programmes in several regions of Russia.

Criminal proceedings were instituted against 14 offenders, with eight having already been summed to court.

However, its biggest success was against the owner of a pirate server in Belarus, who if now found guilty faces two years imprisonment.

Tricolor TV was able to block a total of 105 internet sites providing access to its services.

It also acted against the illegal distribution of its services in public places.

Offences were committed in several Russian cities, including Stavropol, Krasnodar, Rostov, Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod.

After investigating 457 locations and producing 68 administrative reports, the company was able to claim R620,000 (€10,615) in reparations.

Cable operators were also found to be distributing Tricolor TV illegally, with one in Novocherkassk now facing criminal proceedings.

Tricolor TV also notes the problem of cardsharing, with owners transferring the services they have access to, usually for a payment in dollars.

Tricolor TV tackles piracy

Russia’s leading DTH platform Tricolor TV has announced court decisions on a number of criminal cases and civil lawsuits it has initiated against pirates.

In one, a court in the Republic of Karelia awarded the company R330,000 (€6,838) against two brothers for an illegal card sharing scheme.

Besides being fined, both received a one-year prison sentence.

In another, in neighbouring Belarus rather than Russia itself, a court in Minsk convicted a person of distributing counterfeit smart cards.

Tricolor TV then filed and won a civil suit – just as in the Republic of Karelia – and was awarded the local equivalent of R384,104.

Tricolor TV hits back at minister

The leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV has published an open letter criticising Alexei Volin, the country’s deputy minister of communications and mass media.

In it, Tricolor TV takes exception to comments he made in an interview that appeared on the Forbes.ru website on July 17 concerning the 2006 federal law “On advertising” and how it distinguishes between paid (DTH/cable) and FTA channels.

The most contentious of these was that Tricolor TV’s business is not to serve customers but the sale of equipment, something that is strongly denied by the platform, which says that its main source of income is in fact subscription fees.

It adds that it is not engaged and has never worked in the sale of reception equipment, instead forming TV packages and distributing TV signals through leased transponder capacity on satellites.

Tricolor TV also says that at the same time it considers ARPU growth a priority and has always believed in providing subscribers with qualitatively new services, introducing new TV packages, improving content offers and new technology.

It concludes by inviting Volin to a discussion in its offices. It is “very important for us to know your opinion about the market and the possible prospects of its development”.

Tricolor TV secures Lybid satellite capacity

The Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV has acquired satellite capacity on Eutelsat 36B at 36 degrees East formerly used by Ukraine’s Lybid TV.

Quoted by Comnews and Satkurier, Nikolai Orlov, Eutelsat’s representative in Russia, said that the capacity was on two transponders and that on of these had been activated by Tricolor TV a few weeks ago.

He added that Tricolor TV is currently broadcasting only two channels for the platform.

Although Lybid TV, itself a DTH platform serving Ukraine, went off the air and filed for bankruptcy only last month, it is thinking of re-launching a service once the political and economic situation stabilises in country.

However, its prospects would be hampered by the fact that several dozen Ukrainian TV channels, among them some of the most watched, are available FTA via Astra 4A at 4.8 degrees East and Amos 2.3 at 4 degrees West.

Lybid TV was at one time headed by the former director of Tricolor TV and widely believed to have Russian backing. However, the Russian parties in question denied this.

Tricolor TV eyes Siberian expansion

The leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV plans to significantly improve its offer in Siberia thanks to the recently launched Express-AT1 satellite, which will shortly be located at the 56 degrees East orbital position.

Tricolor TV currently has over a million subscribers in Siberia and expects the number to grow significantly.

There are a 7.1 million households in the region, of which around half (up to 3.5 million) are likely to take pay-TV services.

Tricolor TV has reserved 10 transponders on the new satellite, compared to the 2.5 it rented on Bonum-1 and five on DirecTV-1R.

As a result, it will now be able to offer subscribers in Siberia a package containing more than two-dozen HD channels and its offer as a whole will be comparable to that provided to residents of central Russia.

HD channels have been a strong driver for growth for Tricolor TV. Since their introduction in 2012, the number of subscribers to its Siberian service – Tricolor TV Sibir – has increased by more than 1.6 times.

Siberia is home to nearly 20 million people, or a seventh of Russia’s population.

Tricolor TV adds 2.2 million customers in 2013

(«Триколор ТВ» подвел итоги 2013 года)

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 

Russia’s Tricolor TV «Триколор ТВ» has announced that it ended the year with 14.1 million customers up 2.2 million or 18.4% over the year.

More than 10 million are paying customers and 3.1 million are owners of HD receiving equipment.

Tricolor TV restructures

The leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV has announced a number of managerial appointments.

Pavel Basov, who joined the company in April 2011 as director for commercial and business development, is now its general director.

According to Tricolor TV, the challenges he now faces include the implementation of the recently announced ‘5D’ strategy and reaching 20 million subscribers by the end of this year.

As part of what is a new company structure, Vyacheslav Mordachev has meanwhile become its president. In his new position, he will supervise cooperation with Tricolor TV’s strategic partners, authorities and shareholders, as well as advise on business development.

Mordachev joined Tricolor TV in 2006, or a year after its launch, as CEO.

Tricolor TV rebrands channels

The leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV has rebranded three of its proprietary film channels Kinopokaz, Kinopokaz-HD1 and Kinopokaz HD-2.

Plans to rebrand the channels were announced as far back as Q1 2012, when Tricolor TV acquired the business part of Pervogo TVC, responsible for producing the three channels.

Tricolor TV currently operates a total of eight proprietary film channels.

Tricolor inks Warner deal

Russia’s leading DTH platform Tricolor TV has signed an agreement with Warner Bros.

Quoting Tricolor TV, local reports say that although no financial details of the deal have been disclosed, the platform plans to spend over $100 million (€73.1 million) on the acquisition of top content over the next few years.

In the case of that from Warner Bros, it will be included in a new premium movie package launched at the beginning of this month.

Named SuperKino HD, it already had 13,800 subscribers after two weeks and is projected to have 100,000 within a year.

Tricolor TV is also engaged in talks with MGM, Paramount and local distributors.

13 million households in Russia have Tricolor TV

Russian DTH operator, Tricolor TV, has announced that it has more than 2 million subscribers to its high definition (HD) service. Tricolor TV is now present in over 13 million households in Russia with 9.6 million paying subscribers.

Since the beginning of 2013 Tricolor TV’s subscriber base has increased by 9%, 0.5% better than in the same period of 2012, with the number of HD subscribers more than doubling. The number of paid subscribers taking premium packages reached 1.5 million.