Brazil’s Oi makes dramatic pay-TV progress
August 15, 2014
By Chris Forrester
New Brazilian pay-TV operator Oi registered the highest gains in the Brazil DTH market with 24,900 net new subscribers, and which represented 38.5 per cent of all new subs in the country.
The numbers were for June and come from regulator Anatel. The increase was 12.2 per cent up on May’s numbers.
Oi has more than 110 channels (of which 17 are in HD) and has certain channels exclusively, not least TV Globo’s free-to-air transmissions. With World Cup fever during the period Anatel says that in some cities served by Oi the growth reached 80 per cent of the total pay-TV market.
Brazil has a total of 18.9 million pay-TV subscribers, while local estimates suggest that as many as 5 million are viewing pirated signals in one form or another.