Correct
18-04-2007, 11:39 AM
• As of March 31st 2007, Sogecable reaches 2,065,000 DIGITAL+ clients, enjoying a new growth of its subscriber base in the quarter. As many as 21,000 new net subscribers have been added in this quarter.
• Cuatro has continued delivering increases in audience shares in this quarter, reaching 7.7% in March. March audience rates for prime time (7.8%), commercial target (9.8%) and core commercial target (11.2%) have kept an increasing trend as well.
• A quarterly top high turnover has been achieved in DIGITAL+ subscriber revenues, up 6.0% year-on-year. Cuatro doubles advertising revenues -showing a 101.0% increase year-on-year- and reports its first positive results in March 2007, just one year and a half after its launching.
• Sogecable’s EBITDA amounts to 62.6 million euros in the first quarter of 2007, up 34.1% year-on-year. EBIT shows 23.1 million euros profits for the quarter, in comparison to 12.8 million euros losses as of March 31st 2006.
• As of March 31st 2007, Sogecable shows 1.2 million euros Net Profits, in comparison to losses of 20.1 million euros for the same period last year.
Javier Díez de Polanco, CEO of Sogecable, stated:
“In the first quarter of 2007, Sogecable shows growth again in both markets in which operations are addressed.
DIGITAL+ achieves growth in its subscriber base once again and delivers its higher subscriber revenue figures in a quarter, close to three hundred million euros. This evolution derives from the outstanding quality delivered by DIGITAL+ offer. Regarding this, new channels and services have been launched within the quarter. Namely, contents have been reorganized and enhanced on CANA*L+ channels, the ones leading the pay television market in Spain and the key drivers for market growth.
On the other hand, the excellent trend of Cuatro‘s audience shares confirms how strong our project for the Spanish free television market is. Having achieved monthly profits for first time, Cuatro has already become a very important opportunity for Sogecable."
DIGITAL+
The headlines of DIGITAL+, Sogecable's pay-TV activity, in the first quarter of 2007 were as follows:
* DIGITAL+ increased its subscriber base again in the quarter. In the past three months, DIGITAL+ added over 21,000 new net customers to its services, reaching a total of over 2,065,000 subscribers as of March 31st 2007.
* The cancellation rate stood at 10.9% as of March 31st 2007, as compared to 12% twelve months ago.
* The average revenue per customer reached 47.9 euros in the quarter. In the first three months of 2007, the average revenue from subscriptions amounted to 40.1 euros and the average pay-per-view revenue reached 7.8 euros. With respect to the same period in 2006, the average revenue from subscriptions increased by 4.1%, while the average pay-per-view revenue dropped slightly, mainly due to a different seasonality of the Spanish football league.
* A relevant enhancement has been made on the offer of DIGITAL+ during the quarter. CANA*L+ included new premium channels offered exclusively on DIGITAL+, which also added new channels and services to raise the quality and variety of the programming offered to its subscribers.
Subscriber evolution
In the first quarter of 2007, the DIGITAL+ subscriber base increased by over 21,000 new net customers. At the end of the previous quarter, as of December 31st 2006, DIGITAL+ had 2,044,000 customers. As of March 31st 2007, Sogecable had over 2,065,000 subscribers receiving digital broadcasts via satellite from DIGITAL+. In the past twelve months, the subscriber base increased by over 80,000 new net customers. On March 31st 2006, DIGITAL+ had 1,985,000 customers.
The accelerated migration of former ana*logue customers was over in December 2005. From then onwards, DIGITAL+ has recorded sustained growth in its subscriberbase every quarter. In 2006, 84,000 net customers subscribed to DIGITAL+.
Cancellation Rate
Affected by the typical seasonality and thanks to the evolution of subscriber cancellations, the subscriber base increased again in the first quarter of 2007. The cancellation rate continued to drop in the quarter with respect to previous periods. Consequently, as of March 31st 2007, the annual cancellation rate was 10.9%, whereas in the same quarter of 2006 the cancellation rate was 12%. At the end of the previous quarter, it was 11.5%.
Selection of offers
As of March 31st 2007, most of the subscribers chose the contents of the CANA*L+ family channels available in both the “CANA*L+ tier” offers as well as in the most complete “DIGITAL+ tier” packages.
As of March 31st 2007, 95% of customers subscribed to services including CANA*L+ and the most complete packages of the “DIGITAL+ tier” were chosen by 50% of the customer base.
ARPU
Linked to the breakdown of subscribers among the different choices, the average subscription revenue in the first quarter of 2007 was 40.1 euros per subscriber per month, increasing in comparison with previous quarters.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, the average revenue per subscriber and month amounted to 39.2 euros, only partially reflecting the update in subscription prices carried out by DIGITAL+ in December 2006.
In the first quarter of 2006, the comparable average revenue amounted to 38.5 euros per subscriber and month, once that the migration of former CANA*L+ ana*logue subscribers was over.
Thanks to the impacts from new clients joining the service, the continuous addition of contents by subscribers as well as the update in prices, the average subscription revenue is back again over the 40-euro level.
The average revenue from pay-per-view services amounted to an average 7.8 euros a month in the first quarter of 2007.
In the same quarter of 2006, the average revenue per subscriber from pay-per-viewtickets amounted to 8.7 euros a month. This was affected by a higher concentration of games of the Spanish League and King’s Cup championships in this quarter last year due to the Germany Football World Cup event.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, the average revenue from pay-per-view services amounted to 7.4 euros a month per subscriber.
Contents Offered
During the quarter, DIGITAL+ subscribers have continued to enjoy the leading pay television offer available in Spain, with the most complete selection of contents of all programming genres.
In February 2007, CANA*L+ updated its offer in order to provide its subscribers with better and more complete access to the contents. The launches of “CANA*L+ Acción (Action)”, “CANA*L+ Comedia (Comedy)”, “CANA*L+ DCine (Film)”, “CANA*L+ Fútbol (Football)”, “CANA*L+ Deportes (Sports)” and “CANA*L+ Eventos (Events)” –some of them with additional time-multiplexed versions enabling customers to view programming thirty minutes later- have provided DIGITAL+ customers an easier and more complete access to best films, sports, do***entaries and most successful sitcoms. Therefore, the contents of the CANA*L+ family channels have been increased, making these channels more appealing to customers.
This quarter, CANA*L+ has continued to broadcast the main sport events, with exclusive coverage of the Spanish Football League and Cup as well as the last matches of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup, with special following of participation by Spanish teams.
Worth mention in the quarter was the airing of the films “Crash”, “Superman”, “United 93”, “The Da Vinci Code”, “Good Night, and Good Luck”, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest”, “The Island”, “Closer” and “Volver”.
DIGITAL+ subscribers also enjoyed first-runs in Spain of the most acclaimed sitcoms (such as “CSI”, “Desperate Housewives”, “L”, “Prison Break”, “House”, “Little Britain”, “Heroes”, “Brothers & Sisters”, "Commander in Chief”, “Bones” and “24”).
The film channel line-up now includes “TNT”, “TCM”, “TCM Clásico”, and “Sci-Fi”, and the offer of news channels was completely diversified with the addition of “BBC World”, “France 24” and “Al Jazeera English”.
Additionally, DIGITAL+ has recently redesigned its programming guide (EPG), which is an important tool to communicate all its programming contents available to the subscribers.
The updated EPG helps subscribers to search, in a more friendly way, contents of all genres and channels, and it is significantly faster than the former version.
In addition to easier and quicker navigation, a specific electronic programming guide has been implemented for every channel. Thanks to this, subscribers can now check the whole channel programming grid without leaving the channel they are watching.
The headlines of the free-to-air-TV channel Cuatro in the first quarter of 2007 were as follows:
* Cuatro's monthly audience ratings continued to show steady increases. In March 2007, it had an average monthly audience (24 hours) of 7.7% as ,compared to 6.5% at the beginning of the television season in September 2006. In March 2006, Cuatro's average audience reached 5.6%.
* Cuatro's audience share in the segments of most interest for advertisers continued to exceed its general audience share (24 hours), and in March 2007, the average audience rates reached were 9.8% (commercial target) and 11.2% (core commercial target ), as compared to 7.3% and 7.9%, respectively, twelve months earlier.
In the first quarter of 2007, Cuatro recorded an average monthly audience of 7.5% in January and February, and in March it reached an average audience of 7.7%, the highest share recorded since the channel began its broadcasts.
These records reflect significant growth when compared to the audience ratings obtained in the comparable months of January, February and March of 2006, when Cuatro was in its first months of operations and reached average monthly audiences of 5.0%, 5.3% and 5.6%, respectively.
Furthermore, this audience growth trend was evidenced in prime time (from 20.30 p.m. to 24.00 a.m.), the most attractive time slot from a commercial standpoint. In this time slot, the average audience reached 7.8% in the first quarter of 2007 as compared to 5.7%, 6.0% y 6.7% in January, February and March of the previous year, respectively.
Cuatro has continued to increase month after month its audience share in the segments of the market of most interest for advertisers. In these segments, its audience rates significantly exceeded the channel’s general audience rates.
Specifically, in March 2007, the average audience share reached 9.0% and 10.0%, respectively, in the commercial target (individuals aged 16 - 54 years from all social classes except the lowest and living in towns with over 10.000 inhabitants) and the core commercial target (individuals aged 16 - 44 years, from all social classes except the lowest and living in towns with over 50.000 inhabitants).
Benefiting Cuatro's recent audience share evolution, the contributions from several programmes shown at different times and days of the week have been outstanding.
"House", broadcasted on Tuesdays’ prime time, had an average audience share of 18.6% in March 2007, and was the seventh most watched programme during this month.
On Wednesday nights, “Ghost Whisperer” recorded an average audience of 9.9% in its second season.
"Grey's Anatomy”, which is shown at prime time on Thursdays, obtained an average audience share of 10.9% in its third season.
Coach-style contents are Cuatro's proposal for Friday nights. “SOS Adolescentes” and “Callejeros” with average audiences of 9.9% and 8.1%, respectively, in the first quarter of 2007, also exceeded the channel's general audience levels.
Cuatro's late night talk show “Noche Hache” (aired from Monday to Thursday) has continued to increase its audience share, reaching an average of 10.3% in the first quarter of 2007.
On Sundays, it is worth mentioning programmes such as “Cuarto Milenio” (with an average audience of 10.0% in the first quarter of 2007) and “El hormiguero” (with an average audience of 9.8% in its second season).
In March, Cuatro was the third most watched channel by the commercial target at prime time hours on Monday to Friday, exceeding the audience levels reached in this segment by public television channels, with the resulting increase in interest for advertisers.
In this respect, increases in audience were shown in all time slots, and the channel recorded its highest audience levels ever in March 2007. Lunch time sitcoms, midday news and afternoon quiz-shows continue to improve their ratings, enabling Cuatro to record uniform growth in the different time slots.
• Cuatro has continued delivering increases in audience shares in this quarter, reaching 7.7% in March. March audience rates for prime time (7.8%), commercial target (9.8%) and core commercial target (11.2%) have kept an increasing trend as well.
• A quarterly top high turnover has been achieved in DIGITAL+ subscriber revenues, up 6.0% year-on-year. Cuatro doubles advertising revenues -showing a 101.0% increase year-on-year- and reports its first positive results in March 2007, just one year and a half after its launching.
• Sogecable’s EBITDA amounts to 62.6 million euros in the first quarter of 2007, up 34.1% year-on-year. EBIT shows 23.1 million euros profits for the quarter, in comparison to 12.8 million euros losses as of March 31st 2006.
• As of March 31st 2007, Sogecable shows 1.2 million euros Net Profits, in comparison to losses of 20.1 million euros for the same period last year.
Javier Díez de Polanco, CEO of Sogecable, stated:
“In the first quarter of 2007, Sogecable shows growth again in both markets in which operations are addressed.
DIGITAL+ achieves growth in its subscriber base once again and delivers its higher subscriber revenue figures in a quarter, close to three hundred million euros. This evolution derives from the outstanding quality delivered by DIGITAL+ offer. Regarding this, new channels and services have been launched within the quarter. Namely, contents have been reorganized and enhanced on CANA*L+ channels, the ones leading the pay television market in Spain and the key drivers for market growth.
On the other hand, the excellent trend of Cuatro‘s audience shares confirms how strong our project for the Spanish free television market is. Having achieved monthly profits for first time, Cuatro has already become a very important opportunity for Sogecable."
DIGITAL+
The headlines of DIGITAL+, Sogecable's pay-TV activity, in the first quarter of 2007 were as follows:
* DIGITAL+ increased its subscriber base again in the quarter. In the past three months, DIGITAL+ added over 21,000 new net customers to its services, reaching a total of over 2,065,000 subscribers as of March 31st 2007.
* The cancellation rate stood at 10.9% as of March 31st 2007, as compared to 12% twelve months ago.
* The average revenue per customer reached 47.9 euros in the quarter. In the first three months of 2007, the average revenue from subscriptions amounted to 40.1 euros and the average pay-per-view revenue reached 7.8 euros. With respect to the same period in 2006, the average revenue from subscriptions increased by 4.1%, while the average pay-per-view revenue dropped slightly, mainly due to a different seasonality of the Spanish football league.
* A relevant enhancement has been made on the offer of DIGITAL+ during the quarter. CANA*L+ included new premium channels offered exclusively on DIGITAL+, which also added new channels and services to raise the quality and variety of the programming offered to its subscribers.
Subscriber evolution
In the first quarter of 2007, the DIGITAL+ subscriber base increased by over 21,000 new net customers. At the end of the previous quarter, as of December 31st 2006, DIGITAL+ had 2,044,000 customers. As of March 31st 2007, Sogecable had over 2,065,000 subscribers receiving digital broadcasts via satellite from DIGITAL+. In the past twelve months, the subscriber base increased by over 80,000 new net customers. On March 31st 2006, DIGITAL+ had 1,985,000 customers.
The accelerated migration of former ana*logue customers was over in December 2005. From then onwards, DIGITAL+ has recorded sustained growth in its subscriberbase every quarter. In 2006, 84,000 net customers subscribed to DIGITAL+.
Cancellation Rate
Affected by the typical seasonality and thanks to the evolution of subscriber cancellations, the subscriber base increased again in the first quarter of 2007. The cancellation rate continued to drop in the quarter with respect to previous periods. Consequently, as of March 31st 2007, the annual cancellation rate was 10.9%, whereas in the same quarter of 2006 the cancellation rate was 12%. At the end of the previous quarter, it was 11.5%.
Selection of offers
As of March 31st 2007, most of the subscribers chose the contents of the CANA*L+ family channels available in both the “CANA*L+ tier” offers as well as in the most complete “DIGITAL+ tier” packages.
As of March 31st 2007, 95% of customers subscribed to services including CANA*L+ and the most complete packages of the “DIGITAL+ tier” were chosen by 50% of the customer base.
ARPU
Linked to the breakdown of subscribers among the different choices, the average subscription revenue in the first quarter of 2007 was 40.1 euros per subscriber per month, increasing in comparison with previous quarters.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, the average revenue per subscriber and month amounted to 39.2 euros, only partially reflecting the update in subscription prices carried out by DIGITAL+ in December 2006.
In the first quarter of 2006, the comparable average revenue amounted to 38.5 euros per subscriber and month, once that the migration of former CANA*L+ ana*logue subscribers was over.
Thanks to the impacts from new clients joining the service, the continuous addition of contents by subscribers as well as the update in prices, the average subscription revenue is back again over the 40-euro level.
The average revenue from pay-per-view services amounted to an average 7.8 euros a month in the first quarter of 2007.
In the same quarter of 2006, the average revenue per subscriber from pay-per-viewtickets amounted to 8.7 euros a month. This was affected by a higher concentration of games of the Spanish League and King’s Cup championships in this quarter last year due to the Germany Football World Cup event.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, the average revenue from pay-per-view services amounted to 7.4 euros a month per subscriber.
Contents Offered
During the quarter, DIGITAL+ subscribers have continued to enjoy the leading pay television offer available in Spain, with the most complete selection of contents of all programming genres.
In February 2007, CANA*L+ updated its offer in order to provide its subscribers with better and more complete access to the contents. The launches of “CANA*L+ Acción (Action)”, “CANA*L+ Comedia (Comedy)”, “CANA*L+ DCine (Film)”, “CANA*L+ Fútbol (Football)”, “CANA*L+ Deportes (Sports)” and “CANA*L+ Eventos (Events)” –some of them with additional time-multiplexed versions enabling customers to view programming thirty minutes later- have provided DIGITAL+ customers an easier and more complete access to best films, sports, do***entaries and most successful sitcoms. Therefore, the contents of the CANA*L+ family channels have been increased, making these channels more appealing to customers.
This quarter, CANA*L+ has continued to broadcast the main sport events, with exclusive coverage of the Spanish Football League and Cup as well as the last matches of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup, with special following of participation by Spanish teams.
Worth mention in the quarter was the airing of the films “Crash”, “Superman”, “United 93”, “The Da Vinci Code”, “Good Night, and Good Luck”, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest”, “The Island”, “Closer” and “Volver”.
DIGITAL+ subscribers also enjoyed first-runs in Spain of the most acclaimed sitcoms (such as “CSI”, “Desperate Housewives”, “L”, “Prison Break”, “House”, “Little Britain”, “Heroes”, “Brothers & Sisters”, "Commander in Chief”, “Bones” and “24”).
The film channel line-up now includes “TNT”, “TCM”, “TCM Clásico”, and “Sci-Fi”, and the offer of news channels was completely diversified with the addition of “BBC World”, “France 24” and “Al Jazeera English”.
Additionally, DIGITAL+ has recently redesigned its programming guide (EPG), which is an important tool to communicate all its programming contents available to the subscribers.
The updated EPG helps subscribers to search, in a more friendly way, contents of all genres and channels, and it is significantly faster than the former version.
In addition to easier and quicker navigation, a specific electronic programming guide has been implemented for every channel. Thanks to this, subscribers can now check the whole channel programming grid without leaving the channel they are watching.
The headlines of the free-to-air-TV channel Cuatro in the first quarter of 2007 were as follows:
* Cuatro's monthly audience ratings continued to show steady increases. In March 2007, it had an average monthly audience (24 hours) of 7.7% as ,compared to 6.5% at the beginning of the television season in September 2006. In March 2006, Cuatro's average audience reached 5.6%.
* Cuatro's audience share in the segments of most interest for advertisers continued to exceed its general audience share (24 hours), and in March 2007, the average audience rates reached were 9.8% (commercial target) and 11.2% (core commercial target ), as compared to 7.3% and 7.9%, respectively, twelve months earlier.
In the first quarter of 2007, Cuatro recorded an average monthly audience of 7.5% in January and February, and in March it reached an average audience of 7.7%, the highest share recorded since the channel began its broadcasts.
These records reflect significant growth when compared to the audience ratings obtained in the comparable months of January, February and March of 2006, when Cuatro was in its first months of operations and reached average monthly audiences of 5.0%, 5.3% and 5.6%, respectively.
Furthermore, this audience growth trend was evidenced in prime time (from 20.30 p.m. to 24.00 a.m.), the most attractive time slot from a commercial standpoint. In this time slot, the average audience reached 7.8% in the first quarter of 2007 as compared to 5.7%, 6.0% y 6.7% in January, February and March of the previous year, respectively.
Cuatro has continued to increase month after month its audience share in the segments of the market of most interest for advertisers. In these segments, its audience rates significantly exceeded the channel’s general audience rates.
Specifically, in March 2007, the average audience share reached 9.0% and 10.0%, respectively, in the commercial target (individuals aged 16 - 54 years from all social classes except the lowest and living in towns with over 10.000 inhabitants) and the core commercial target (individuals aged 16 - 44 years, from all social classes except the lowest and living in towns with over 50.000 inhabitants).
Benefiting Cuatro's recent audience share evolution, the contributions from several programmes shown at different times and days of the week have been outstanding.
"House", broadcasted on Tuesdays’ prime time, had an average audience share of 18.6% in March 2007, and was the seventh most watched programme during this month.
On Wednesday nights, “Ghost Whisperer” recorded an average audience of 9.9% in its second season.
"Grey's Anatomy”, which is shown at prime time on Thursdays, obtained an average audience share of 10.9% in its third season.
Coach-style contents are Cuatro's proposal for Friday nights. “SOS Adolescentes” and “Callejeros” with average audiences of 9.9% and 8.1%, respectively, in the first quarter of 2007, also exceeded the channel's general audience levels.
Cuatro's late night talk show “Noche Hache” (aired from Monday to Thursday) has continued to increase its audience share, reaching an average of 10.3% in the first quarter of 2007.
On Sundays, it is worth mentioning programmes such as “Cuarto Milenio” (with an average audience of 10.0% in the first quarter of 2007) and “El hormiguero” (with an average audience of 9.8% in its second season).
In March, Cuatro was the third most watched channel by the commercial target at prime time hours on Monday to Friday, exceeding the audience levels reached in this segment by public television channels, with the resulting increase in interest for advertisers.
In this respect, increases in audience were shown in all time slots, and the channel recorded its highest audience levels ever in March 2007. Lunch time sitcoms, midday news and afternoon quiz-shows continue to improve their ratings, enabling Cuatro to record uniform growth in the different time slots.