Glitch means recount for Brazilian pay-TV
March 13, 2015
By Chris Forrester
A misstatement by Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel has forced a re-count for pay-TV growth covering December 2014 and January of this year.
The initial statement from Anatel said that January’s net pay-TV growth in Brazil was 83,000 subscribers, which would have been the worst January period of the last few years, and a severe slowing of take-up.
However, statistics from Dataxis suggest the numbers are wrong. Anatel said that December’s numbers had registered a fall of 238,000, and subsequently attributed to a tidy up of Claro/America Movil’s non-performing subscriptions.
The new starting point suggests that the net increase in January should have been 183,000 subs, which is back on track as far as growth is concerned. Anatel’s newly stated numbers say that Brazil has a total of 19.68 million subs (split 11.98 million from DTH and 10.22 million cable).