Yes subscribers up again

Israeli DTH platform Yes has grown its installed base for the 6th successive quarter. An additional 11,000 subs were added in the third quarter to reach a total of 623,000 subscribers as at September 30, 2014.

“This is the sixth quarter in a row that we have posted an increase in the number of subscriber households, with an impressive 11,000 new subscribers and growth across all financial metrics. We are pleased to see that our focus on high-quality service, cutting edge television content from around the world, and value-added services such as the launch of the largest free VOD library in the multi-channel TV market, are reflected in our customer satisfaction ratings,” said CEO Ron Eilon.

EBITDA in the third quarter of 2014 grew 8.8% to NIS 151 million (€31.92 million), compared with NIS 138 million in the year ago quarter.

Operating profit in the third quarter of 2014 amounted to NIS 76 million compared with NIS 72 million, an increase of 4.5%.

BSkyB to own 87% of Sky Deutschland

UK pay-TV broadcaster BSkyB has ended up with a 87.45% stake in Sky Deutschland following the closure of the take-over offer made to the German pay-TV company’s minority shareholders.

Under German stock market rules, BSkyB had to place an offer to all remaining shareholders following its take-over of the 57% stake in Sky Deutschland from 21st Century Fox.

The transaction is part of BSkyB’s £5 billion move to combine its operations in the UK with Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia to benefit from synergies in areas such as content, technology and logistics.

Russian broadcasters team up

Three of Russia’s leading broadcasters have joined forces to form a new TV and film production company.

Due to be officially launched on January 1, 2015, it will be jointly owned by the National Media Group (NMG), VGTRK (RTR) and MTG-backed CTC Media, with each holding a 30% stake and the remaining 10% of shares distributed among its management.

The company, referred to as Sozdavaemaya in a release by the NMG, will be open to all market participants and is expected to become one of the top five Russian TV and film producers within the next 3-5 years.

Sozdavaemaya will specialise in entertainment-based TV and may enter into partnerships with other TV companies.

The founders have already appointed Vyacheslav Murugov as its director general.

Dish TV receives DTH licence in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan government has granted a satellite (direct-to-home) television broadcasting licence to Dish TV. The DTH operator has planned to invest over INR 1 billion in this joint venture with Satnet.

“We are pleased that we have been issued the DTH license by government of Sri Lanka to operate DTH services in the country, which we are working on for last couple of months. Now the focus will be on building up the ground opportunities,” said Salil Kapoor, COO of Dish TV.

Dish TV has purchased additional transponder space on SES 8 that was launched in December 2013.

Ziggo’s TV marketshare remains at 62.5%

Following years of declining TV marketshare, Dutch cabler Ziggo has maintained is TV marketshare at 62.5% during the third quarter.

However, the total number of TV homes continued to drop – with 18,000 households – bringing the total to 2,759,000, but due to a decrease in the number of homes passed, the operator’s market penetration remained stable at 62.5%, according to an analysis of the Dutch websiteDigitalekabeltelevisie.

Ziggo saw the total number of digital TV homes increase with 13,000 to a total of 2,304,000, which brings the percentage of digital customers to 84.2%.

During the quarter the number of homes taking additional digital packages rose with 1,000 to 824,000. However, compared with a year ago, the number of homes with additional tiers dropped 44,000.

CTC looks to the future

Russia’s CTC Media has posted relatively encouraging results against the backdrop of uncertainty over its future ownership.

Q3 revenues were up 3% year-on-year in ruble terms to $158.6 million, while OIBDA rose by 9% in ruble terms to $50.6 million.

However, net income was down by 24% in ruble terms to $31.6 million.

In her comments on the results, Yuliana Slashcheva, CEO of CTC Media, said that the broadcaster is “evaluating a potential transformation” of its channel Peretz.

She also spoke positively about the new structure of Video International, the leading TV ad seller in Russia, despite the company having its own sales house (Everest).

CTC Media cooperates with the ‘new VI’ and will look to do so even further in the future.

Commenting on the new legislation that will place a 20% foreign ownership limit on Russian media companies, she said that CTC Media’s future actions “may include corporate restructuring, franchising and licensing structures, capital reorganisation or divestments”.

Czech DTH market consolidates

T-Mobile has decided to close its TV service in the Czech Republic on November 30.

In a statement, it says that its existing T-Mobile TV customers will be able to switch to the Skylink service, operated by M7 Group, for no additional charge.

This has been confirmed by Skylink, which says that T Mobile TV customers will not need to modify or change their reception equipment and the conditions and prices for services will remain unchanged.

T-Mobile has been present in the Czech market since 1996 and has been part of the Deutsche Telekom group since 2002.

As of June 30 this year, it was the leading provider of mobile services in the Czech Republic, with more than 5.9 million customers.

The closure of T-Mobile TV marks an important change in the Czech Republic’s DTH landscape.

Skylink, into which its sister platform CS Link was merged, remains the market leader, with services also provided by UPC DTH’s freeSAT and Digi TV.