Cable And Satellite Annual Round-Up 1998

1998 saw a continuation of growth in the cable sector, with the industry breaking through the 11 million homes mark at the beginning of the year. By 1 October it had risen further to just under 12 million (11.99) according to ITC data*. Over 2.7 million broadband homes now receive a cable TV service, which gives it a penetration rate of 23%. This is an increase of 1.2% points on the same period last year. Telewest Communications, following the £649 million takeover of General Cable (see Telewest Buys General Cable For £649m), has overtaken Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) as the market leader for cable providers: 901,265 homes are now connected to Telewest’s services.

ITC Total Penetration Trends

Satellite is still the preferred choice of access to non terrestrial stations, with 4.1 million homes now subscribing to BSkyB. This represents 122,000 new subscribers to satellite over the past year. However, according to BARB estimates, cable subscription continues to grow at a greater rate than that of satellite. By the end of last year subcriptions to cable services had grown to 2.9 million, an increase of 514,000 subscriptions year on year. Cable subscription is now only 1.2 million behind that of satellite. According to BARB estimates, subscription to non-terrestrial television services exceeded 7 million homes in November.

BARB Dish Estimates (000’s)

BSkyB set the cat amongst the pidgeons in September with a takeover offer for Manchester United Football Club. The £623 million deal was referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for further scrutiny before the deal will be allowed to go through. The BSkyB bid prompted a flurry of interest by media companies in football clubs, with Carlton briefly flirting with a possible takeover of Arsenal (see Carlton Calls Off Arsenal Takeover Talks) and NTL acquiring a small share in Newcastle United and rights to a potential full buy-out (see Update: NTL/Newcastle United Deal).

More channels launched last year with the introduction of digital services to the UK towards the end of the year. Sky claimed to offer the greatest choice of channels with around 200 new stations (although some of these were complimentary to existing channels, for example Sky MovieMax 2, 3 and 4).

ONDigital, the terrestrial digital service, launched at the end of the year into a battle with Sky for the new digital market. Claiming to be easier to access than Sky’s digital service, it is understood that it has so far sold around 60,000 set-top boxes, although this is an unconfirmed figure. Sky Digital, on the other hand, today announced that it has 350,000 customers, exceeding both targets and independent predictions (see BSkyB Profits Fall Following Sky Digital Launch, But Targets Are Met). The cable companies appear have decided to employ a wait and see strategy before unveiling their digital services, however each of the main providers (Telewest, NTL and CWC) is planning a launch for this Spring.

*ITC data is currently only available as far as October 1998.

Annual Round-Ups for other media are available in the Round-Ups section of the Newsline features list. A summary of last year’s news events is availble by clicking A Look Back At 1998….

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