CEE 2011 > The region and its growth prospects
Digital TV Europe June 2011
Expected CEE pay-TV revenues, 2011-2015 US$M
4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 Source: Informa Telecoms & Media Russia
Russia was home to an estimated 13.4 million cable subs at the end of September 2010 and cable association AKTR optimistically fore- casts 25 million cable subs by 2015. However, 70% of cable subscribers only pay to receive the ‘social package’ of terrestrial channels. Russia has 600 cable operators and 60 MMDS platforms, but only 10% have more than 20,000 subscribers, and six companies control around 60% of subs. Moscow accounts for almost one-third of the country’s cable TV revenues. Service provider Sistema Mass Media is consolidating its telecoms and TV assets under the MTS brand. Sistema owns 53% of MTS, the country’s leading mobile operator. Many of Sistema’s TV interests were previous-
ly placed under subsidiary Comstar-UTS, trading as Stream TV. By September 2010, Comstar had over 1.9 million pay TV subs. Rostelecom has been buying out minority shareholders in Svyazinvest’s seven regional telcos to create a single unit. Svyazinvest is tar- geting a 17% share of pay TV revenues by 2015. One of the subsidiaries, Central Telegraph, is in the process of building its Universal Multi Service Network in Moscow to cover 1.5 million apartments. With a 2,000km fibre-optic network already opera- tional, the company had 224,000 broadband subscribers and 40,000 IPTV subs under the Qwerty TV brand at September 2010. Also owned by Svyazinvest, North-West Telecom launched an IPTV service in April 2008 under the Avangard TV brand, which offers a network DVR system with up to 72 hours stor- age. Avangard TV had 25,000 IPTV subs by
2011 2015
September 2010. Southern Telecommunications, another Svyazinvest asset, launched an IPTV service in late 2005 under the brand name DiSeL-TV. Informa estimates that it ended September 2010 with 691,400 broadband and 39,500 IPTV subs. In terms of DTH, take-up has soared but most homes receive free or near-free services. Seven services are available: NTV-Plus, Tricolor TV, Russian TV Time (RTVT), Raduga, Platforma HD and two from Orion Express (Viva TV and Continent TV). An eighth operation, a pre-pay service known as Telekarta, launched in September 2010. Tricolor TV is the most successful DTH service in terms of customer numbers with an estimated 7.5 million. However, it has gained scale by offering a free subscription for the first year. NTV-Plus ended September 2010 with 750,000 subscribers and despite adding channels and a greater range of services, it has not met the desired subscription growth. Viva TV, the DTH service provided by Orion Express, a subsidiary of Moscow-based Telecom Express, had 155,000 subscribers at September 2010.
Ukraine
Ukraine has 18 million TV households, with around 3.8 million pay TV homes. State statistics committee Ukrstat said there were 3.46 million cable TV subscribers in Ukraine at the start of the year. The cable sector is fragmented, with more than half the subs served by operators with fewer than 10,000 subscribers and it is estimated that are up to 700 operators. Volia, jointly owned by private equity firms Sigmableyzer and Providence Equity Partners, dominates the cable sector. Including its subsidiaries, the operator had about 1.4 million subscribers at the start of 2010.
In terms of DTH, there are more than two million homes with satellite TV. However, the vast majority of these households receive only free-to-air channels. Launched in April 2008, Vision TV (Viasat) is a joint venture between Sweden’s Modern Times Group and local set- top box manufacturer Strong Media Group. MTG reported that Viasat’s premium DTH services in the Baltics and the Ukraine had a combined subscriber base of 245,000 by end- 2010. Vision TV had 110,000 subscribers at end of the third quarter of 2010. ●
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