Cable telecommunications company, Telewest, this morning announced that it gained almost 90,000 new television, telephone and business subscriptions by the end of the fourth quarter of 1998. Of these new customers, 51,000 subscribed to the company’s cable television service which, although still analogue, is competing directly with the new offerings being heavily promoted by Sky Digital and ONdigital.
Telewest now has 952,000 cable TV customers and 1.2 million residential telephone customers; 797,000 households subscribe to both these services. The company’s internet service gained 24,000 customers by the end of last year.
Telewest reported a £313 million loss on ordinary activities before tax for the year ended 31 December 1998. This is more or less in line with market analysts’ expectations, although it is greater than 1997’s £309 million loss. Despite this revenues grew by 39.5% to £539.2 million and television churn was down by 5% points.
Chief executive, Tony Illsley, said: “The results reflect our focus on customer sales, service and marketing, coupled with the success of our Millennium combined cable TV and telephony service. Despite the planned reduction in network build and new homes marketed we added over 112,000 cable TV customers, a 27% increase on the year before and increased TV penetration by 2 percentage points.”
Illsley also expects Telewest to benefit more fully from its merger with General Cable during the course of this year (see Telewest Buys General Cable For £649m). The company’s digital television service is also planned for launch in the fourth quarter of this year and the Front Row pay-per-view film service will increase from four to eight channels at the beginning of May.
At 11:37am today, Telewest’s shares were up by 5.5p on the day’s opening at 249p.
Telewest Communications: 01483 750 900
