Advanced Television

Sogecable, revenues up, subscribers down

February 24, 2009

From David Del Valle in Madrid

Spain’s largest pay-TV group, Sogecable, hit a record E1.87 billion in revenues for 2008, but failed to stop the fall in subscribers as the company lost 30,000 pay-TV clients in its up-for-sale digital DTH platform Digital Plus on the year.

Sogecable’s free-to-air channel Cuatro increased by 13.7 per cent its ad revenue to E292 million and achieved a 8.6 per cent audience rating three years after its launch. Its pay-TV platform, Digital Plus, with more than 2 million subscribers, saw its ad sales fall by 8.1 per cent to E26.2 million.

At Digital+, subscription revenues increased by 0.8 per cent for Q4 2008 as overall subscriber numbers fell by 26,000 on the quarter and 30,000 on the year. Increased average revenue per user of E44.5 per month however, up from E41.7 in Q4 2007, helped take Q4 subs revenues to a record E1.14bn

In January, talks over the E2.5 billion sale of the business were put on hold after Telefonica and Vivendi refused to move beyond E2 billion.

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