ITC Cable Statistics Show Decrease In Subscribers
The ITC has released its cable TV statistics for the first quarter of 2002. The figures show that cable TV subscriptions have seen a year on year decrease to 3.54m. This is a 1.9% drop on the same period in 2001, when the total number of cable TV subscribers was 3.61m.
The drop was experienced by ntl, which scaled back its sales activities in order to reduce costs during its recapitalisation process. This resulted in fewer new subscribers, which when combined with the typical churn rates produced a fall in overall subscriptions.
| ITC Cable Statistics – Comparison By Quarter | |||
| 1 April 2001 | 1 Jan 2002 | 1 April 2002 | |
| Homes Passed | 12,653,713 | 12,451,184 | 12,489,049 |
| Homes Connected (TV and/or phone) | 4,574,627 | 4,617,808 | 4,543,365 |
| Cable Service Penetration* | 36% | 37% | 36.4% |
| Homes Connected (TV) | 3,610,958 | 3,617,781 | 3,544,008 |
| Digital Homes Connected | 1,253,623 | 1,982,993 | 2,028,360 |
| TV Penetration | 29% | 29.1% | 28.4% |
| Cable TV Subs as a % of TV Homes | 15% | 15% | 14% |
*”Cable service penetration” records the percentage of homes passed and marketed taking services offered by a cable operator, of whatever nature. “TV penetration” records the percentage of homes passed and marketed that take TV.
According the ITC, the digital pay-TV market is showing signs of slowing growth, although the switch from analogue to digital on the cable platforms continues. Of 3.54m cable TV subscribers, more than 2m are receiving a digital service- a 61.8% year on year increase and 2.3% growth quarter on quarter.
Cable’s share of the digital pay TV market was up 5.5% percentage points year on year, at 22% for the first quarter of 2002.
The situation with ITV Digital meant that no figures were released for the quarter. The ITC therefore made the simplified assumption that ITV Digital subs at the end of the period were equal to the latest figures released for Q4 2001.
Year on year, ITC figures show that the number of satellite subscribers has grown 13.6% year on year, to 5.89m. In contrast, cable subscriptions saw a year on year decrease of 1.9%.
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