Telenet reaches 1 million digital TV customers in 4Q09

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
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MECHELEN — Telenet Group Holding NV (“Telenet” or the “Company”) (Euronext Brussels: TNET) announces its unaudited consolidated results under International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union (“EU GAAP”) for the full year ended December 31, 2009.

Television

Digital & Premium Television

At the end of December 2009, we served 1,001,000 digital TV customers, up 49% compared to the prior year period. The vast majority of our digital TV customers opt for the interactive Telenet Digital TV platform (938,000 subscribers at year”end, +54% year”on”year) with the remaining 63,000 subscribers watching digital TV through an INDI set”top box. In the past year, we attracted a net 329,000 new Telenet Digital TV customers compared to 218,000 in 2008 (+51% year”on”year). In Q4 2009 alone, we welcomed 81,000 net new subscribers to our Telenet Digital TV platform compared to 90,000 net additions in Q4 2008, which was largely influenced by pent”up demand in the acquired Interkabel area. Hence, we believe our Q4 2009 achievement to be solid especially in light of intensified competition in the residential market.

Our digitalization ratio, which measures the total base of digital TV customers (both Telenet Digital TV and INDI) relative to our total cable TV subscriber base, continued to grow, reaching 43% at the end of December 2009 compared to a mere 28% a year earlier. It should be noted that the Q4 2008 digitalization ratio within the Combined Network was diluted by the integration of the acquired Interkabel TV subscriber base, being predominantly analog. In the course of Q4 2009, we terminated our analog PayTV services and migrated most of the remaining 6,000 premium analog PayTV subscribers on the Telenet Partner Network to our interactive digital platform.

Basic Cable Television

Subscribers to both basic analog and digital television services totaled 2,342,000 at the end of December 2009 compared to 2,402,000 a year earlier. This implies a total annual net organic loss of 60,000 basic cable TV subscribers within our Combined Network. This net organic loss excludes migrations to our digital TV platform and represents customers churning to competitor’s platforms, such as other digital television providers and satellite operators, or customers having moved out of our service footprint.

In line with our expectations, the rate of organic attrition increased in Q4 2009 after having shown a moderating trend during the first nine months of the year. During the year”end quarter, we incurred a net organic loss of 21,000 basic cable TV subscribers compared to an average loss rate of 13,000 during the first nine months of the year. We believe the higher rate of organic attrition partly reflects typical seasonality at year”end, our enlarged footprint following the Interkabel Acquisition in October 2008 as well as increased churn as a result of the incumbent’s free TV offer. At group level, the loss of these single play basic cable television subscribers was significantly more than offset by the continued uptiering of our existing basic cable TV subscriber base to multiple play and the further migration to digital TV.

Going forward, we foresee sustained competition in the residential TV market both from existing platforms and DTT (digital terrestrial television). Hence, we will increasingly pursue our strategy of converting the majority of our single play basic cable TV subscribers to multiple play, while optimizing our diversified TV product portfolio through DTT later this year following our recently signed agreement with Norkring België NV.

Operational Highlights (in 000 serviced premises):

                                               Dec 2009  Dec 2008  Change %
                                               --------  --------  --------
Total Cable TV                                    2,342     2,402       -2%
Analog Cable TV                                   1,342     1,729      -22%
Digital Cable TV (Telenet Digital TV + INDI)      1,001       674       49%

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