Romanian digital cable take-up on the rise

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012
ANCOM logo

Today, during the International Digital Forum 2012, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (Autoritatea Nationala pentru Administrare si Reglementare in Comunicatii – ANCOM) has presented preliminary statistical data on the audiovisual media programme retransmission services in the first half of 2012. These data show an increase in the total number of subscribers to audiovisual programme retransmission services as of 30 June 2012, as compared to last year’s same period, determined in particular by the growing number of subscriptions to retransmission services received in digital format by the end-users. 83.5% of all the Romanian households receive audiovisual services, due to 449 providers.

“Digitization gains ground in the area of TV programme retransmission as well. The latest statistical data gathered and processed by ANCOM show that there were 3.3 million subscribers to digital programme retransmission services at the end of June 2012, by 16% more as compared to 30 June 2011, i.e. a share of more than 50% within the total subscribers to retransmission services. In one year, the number of subscribers to digital cable networks registered a significant rise, by 49%, exceeding 1 million, whereas the number of DTH subscribers grew by almost 5%, to 2.21 million”, the president of ANCOM, Mr. Cătălin Marinescu, said on the occasion of this event, which he attended as a speaker.

The total number of subscribers to audiovisual programme retransmission services was 5.92 million at midyear, increasing by 2.9% as compared to end-2011 and by 5.2% as compared to 30 June 2011, while the cable networks and the DTH and IP networks witnessed growing numbers of subscribers. More exactly, the number of cable subscribers grew by 2.7% to 3.67 million, whereas the number of satellite (DTH) subscribers rose by 3% to 2.21 million in the first six months of 2012. The penetration rate at household level of the subscription-based audiovisual programme retransmission services increased to 83.5%, while the penetration rate of the cable networks reached 51.8%.

In terms of residence area, as of 30 June 2012, 60% of the subscribers were urban residents, the majority of them (79%) being connected to cable networks. On the other side, in the rural area, the subscribers to retransmission services were predominantly using the DTH technology for receiving audiovisual programmes – 64%.

Cable networks registered increases in terms of the total number of subscribers (by 2.7%, in the first half of 2012), due to the 24% rise in the number of subscribers to digital cable retransmission services compared to end-2011, which triggered a greater share of this category within the total subscribers to cable TV services. More specifically, the share of the number of digital cable subscribers rose by 5 percentage points to 30% within the total number of cable subscribers. As regards the distribution by residence area, in the first half of 2012 the number of cable subscribers grew both in the urban area (+0.8%) and in the rural area (+9%), to 2.82 million, respectively to 0.85 million.