Digital terrestrial broadcaster, ONdigital, has broken the half million mark in its latest subscriber figures released today. The group – 50:50 owned by Granada and Carlton Communications – said that it had signed up 552,000 customers by 31 December 1999.
The takeup represents a 34% increase on the September 1999 subscriber base, which stood at 411,000. The Christmas period was described by ONdigital chief executive Stuart Prebble as the ‘first real digital Christmas’. His company, which has invested over £210 million so far, sold around 140,000 extra subscriptions in the three months up to and including Christmas; prepaid boxes accounted for around 50% of these sales.
Prebble says: “Prepaid is creating a whole new market for set-top boxes, just as it did for mobile phones. It is by far the easiest way to get digital TV and it is unique to ONdigital. Neither cable nor satellite can offer digital TV, prepaid, ready to take home, plug and play. We will build on prepaid’s successful launch.”
After a year of broadcasting digital satellite services, ONdigital’s main rival Sky Digital had signed up 1.8 million customers to its service (see Sky Digital Reaches 1.8m Customers). Many of these had converted from the existing BSkyB analogue subscription. Prebble is nevertheless pleased with ONdigital’s performance so far:
“Winning over half a million subscribers after only a year is an extraordinary achievement for a completely new company to the pay TV market. This figure would have been even higher if integrated digital TVs had come into shops in the promised numbers.”
The group also announced today a deal with digital network SDN to develop a joint pay-per-view venture called ONrequest. Launching this spring, ONrequest will offer up to five channels of films and events which can be bought directly through the TV. The service will be available to ONdigital subscribers and non-subscribers providing they have either a digital terrestrial set-top box or an integrated digital TV (idTV).
ONdigital is also planning to launch an email service, ONmail, this spring.
ONdigital: 020 7819 8000
