Forthnet tops 0.5m pay-TV subs

Forthnet ended the third quarter with 504,441 subscribers to its pay-TV services in Greece, or 20.2% more than in the same period last year.

Its triple play customer total meanwhile stood at 355,862, a 41.3% increase on a year earlier.

Total subscriptions stood at 1,177,651 (+14.4%), with the number of unique households being 821,789 (+5.7%).

Forthnet’s revenues in Q3 amounted to €91,865,0000, down by 2.5% on the same period last year, while its adjusted EBITDA was €15,587,000 (-2.2%).

The company notes that the rollout of triple-play services is expected to be the main driver for the pay-TV market in the future.

Commenting on the results, Panos Papadopoulos, the company’s CEO, said: “Forthnet is proving its resilience to the negative trends the domestic telecommunication sector faces and it continues to outperform the market. Our differentiated strategy allows us to stabilize our financial performance and improve our subscribers’ base”.

MultiChoice grows DTT footprint

Naspers has reported an increase of 342,000 households across its African pay-TV business in the first half.

The company, which operates under the MultiChoice brand, now has services available in 873,000 households. Around 1.2 million subscribers have a PVR.

The segment reported a revenue increase of 18% year over year to reach R20.2 billion and delivering a profit of R5 billion.

MultiChoice now runs DTT services in 11 countries and Naspers in now looking towards further analogue switch offs to further grow the business.

“The second half of the year is traditionally the most active part of the year for most of our businesses. We expect some pick-up in spend as we capitalise on the holiday season, which could result in lower core headline earnings for that period,” cautioned CFO, Basil Sgourdos. “Our goal remains to develop online classifieds, etail and DTT to deliver future growth and create value over time,” he added.

Local content hubs are being developed in Nigeria and Kenya; and additional transponder capacity has recently been purchased from Eutelsat and Intelsat.

New DTH, mobile OTT platforms for Slovakia

Antik Telecom will launch a new DTH platform in Slovakia in the first quarter of 2015. It will offer more HD channels than any other service in the country.

Antik Telecom will also launch a mobile TV service over the internet, known as Antik TV Go, in the first week of December.

According to the company, the DTH service will be distributed by Eutelsat 16 at 16 degrees East, only a few degrees from the popular 19.2 degrees East slot.

This will allow viewers to watch hundreds of FTA channels from Astra and Eutelsat in addition to the new service.

The Basic package will cost €0.99 a month, while the family package, offering around 80 channels, eight on a TV archive basis, will cost €8.80 a month.

They will, in addition, be offered several other packages, including a Family Premium one for €7.80 a month.

All told, the hybrid DTH platform will offer viewers 100 satellite and 50 internet channels, with a third of the channels being in HD.

Viewers will be able to receive the service by buying a pre-paid card for €29 and AntikSAT satellite and IP HD box for €69. A CA module will cost €39 and complete reception equipment, including a dish, €119.

All packages will give access to a TV archive containing programmes broadcast in the previous 10 days.

Furthermore, they will be able to watch the service on mobile devices for no additional fee.

Those who register to receive the service before the end of this year will be able to view the Family package free of charge for three months.

Significantly, customers will not be required to sign a contract.

Antik says the service will also include dozens of internet channels and other features already familiar to subscribers who have the AntikSAT box.

Meanwhile, Antik TV Go will offer internet users with smartphones and tablets up to 47 channels, with viewers being given the option to pay for the OTT service with three (€7.50), six (€14.40) or 12 (€27.60) month subscriptions. Eight of the channels will be available as an archive.

Reception of the OTT service will be through a new proprietary box known as the SmartTVBox Nano. Including integrated Wi-Fi, it will cost users €89.

Prior to a press conference taking place today (November 26) in Bratislava, it was reported in the local media that Antik would not cooperate with any existing players in the Slovak DTH market, namely the M7 Group (Skylink), Slovak Telekom (New Digi TV and Newc Magio sat) and UPC DTH (freeSAT).

Russian DTH sale ruled out

Russia’s MTS has dismissed the possibility of buying Raduga TV, the DTH platform backed by Modern Times Group (MTG).

Speaking in a press conference discussing MTS’ latest set of results and quoted by AKTR and Comnews, Andrei Dubovskov, the company’s president, said that there was really nothing to buy, with any potential gain being marginal due to “other encumbrances”.

Analysts welcomed his comments, pointing to the legal risks that would be involved in acquiring Raduga TV, the owners of which have been embroiled in a dispute with Roskomnadzor over licences.

As previously reported in Broadband TV News, last month the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) gave Digital Broadcasting, which is owned by Sistema Mass Media (SMM), permission to acquire 100% of DalGeoKom (Raduga TV). However, SMM has yet to decide whether to undertake the acquisition.

MTS meanwhile announced the launch of its own DTH platform, in partnership with SMM, on November 12.

In its latest set of results, MTS says that in terms of subscribers the DTH market in Russia is expected to grow by 42% from 13.1 million to 18.6 million between 2013-2018.

Its value is projected to grow by 40% to R31.3 billion (€552.2 million) over the same period.

Akado drops Russian station

The Russian cable operator Akado has ceased its cooperation with VKT (‘Your Commercial Television’), one of the country’s longest-established independent broadcasters.

According to Kommersant, VKT had total debts of over R27 billion (€476.3 million) as of last year and is facing claims from a number of its creditors.

However, it has so far avoided bankruptcy.

Interestingly, Akado and VKT have a common co-owner in the shape of Renova Media, backed by Yuri Pripachkin and Viktor Vekselberg.

VKT says that Akado is no longer carrying it due to the ban on advertising on cable and DTH channels that comes into effect at the beginning of 2015.

South Indian MSOs to form Federation

According to a report by Indian Television, MSOs in Southern India are planning to form a South Indian Federation. The federation will launch officially in December in Kerala.

The group is looking at developing common platforms using a single middleware in order to reduce the cost of providing value added services. “A technical team has already been formed for this and they are working on getting the service in place,” Sudhish Kumar, executive director of Sagar E Technologies, told Indian Television. The MSOs see offering broadband as the most promising way to generate additional revenue.

The MSOs together provide services in Bengaluru, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala via 20 headends to around 3 million subscribers.

Telkom, MultiChoice strike DStv Explora and data deal

Wifi connector and Explora combo (Photo Supplied)

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Cape Town – From this Sunday 23 November consumers acquiring a new broadband contract from Telkom for 24 months will get one of MultiChoice's DStv Explora decoders for free in an exclusive arrangement between the South African telecom operator and the satellite pay-TV platform.

New Telkom broadband customers who sign a 24 month contract for a 10Mbit/s or faster ADSL service, or existing Telkom broadband customers who upgrade to a 10Mbit/s line, will get a DStv Explora free.

MultiChoice just launched its DStv connected services, enabling the linking of its DStv Explora to the internet.

Through it DStv Premium subscribers are able to set remote recordings from their computers, tablets and smartphones for their decoder, while the expanded DStv Catch Up plus gives subscribers access to more on demand content downloaded through the internet.

A new app, DStv NOW will be released in December.

MultiChoice said last week that it would be making an announcement this week in which it will "take another step to making these services more accessible" for DStv subscribers through the use of these new broadband connected services, but has not yet done so.

"Telkom and MultiChoice have entered into an exclusive 6 month promotion that entails Telkom internet broadband being bundled with the new IP-connected DStv Explora decoder," says Telkom.

"Customers will benefit from faster, high-speed Telkom broadband and more fixed-line data. Furthermore, the free DStv Explora and WiFi connector will allow customers access to the enhanced DStv Catch Up catalogue and additional functionality."

Telkom meanwhile is making plans to roll out its own video-on-demand (VOD) service.

- Channel24