Spain's pay-TV market is losing ground. For the first time since the arrival of IPTV at the beginning of the new century, the number of subscribers of pay-TV operators has been reduced.
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At the end of Q3, Spanish pay-TV operators had a total of 3,794,000 clients – 4,000 fewer than last June.
In the middle of Spain's debate over the introduction of payment on DTT
the figures seem to question the existence of a big demand for this
business.
Telefónica's DSL TV operator Imagenio, cable operator Ono and DSL TV
operator Orange TV have all seen their growth diminished. In Q3, a
generally positive period for television, these companies grew a meager
13,000 new subscribers in total. In particular while Imagenio and Ono
grew below previous quarters Orange reduced by 6,000 subscribers to
86,000. In Telefónica's case, Q3 figures indicate its service
'Conexión' offering limited access to Imagenio (only to films and
football pay per view without the option of the thematic channels)
haven't had the success the company hoped for.
But more worriesome is Digital+'s situation. In the middle of its sale,
the operator’s client base is not growing in spite of latest inclusions
of Mediaset's national private channel Telecinco, Grupo Planeta's
national private channel Antena3 and Mediapro's national private
channel laSexta.
At the end of September Digital+ had 2.056 million clients a total of
17,000 fewer than in June. The operator's agressive commercial offering
consisting of giving new subscriptions for free and their installations
and reducing prices for subscribers who want to give up hasn't prevent
it from losing business continously.
