Telenet adds 107k digital TV subscribers in Q1

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
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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 first quarter ended March 31, 2009.

Digital Television

As of March 31, 2009, we reported a total of 780,000 subscribers to our digital television services, including 716,000 subscribers to the Telenet Digital TV product and 64,000 subscribers to the INDI digital TV service following the Interkabel Acquisition. We achieved record quarterly net subscriber additions to our digital TV product of 107,000 during the first quarter of 2009, and with the benefit of this strong result, increased our digital TV subscriber base organically by 278,000 or 63% compared to March 2008.

The strong progress in our subscriber additions were particularly driven by the combination of the successful launch of our Telenet Digital TV platform in the Telenet PICs Network in mid”October 2008 and by the accelerated uptake on the Telenet Network. Among our record net digital subscriber additions of 107,000 in our first quarter, the vast majority of new subscribers rented the high”end High Definition (HD) set top box with Personal Video Recording (PVR) capability.

Looking at our overall cable television subscriber base on the Combined Network at the end of March 2009, 33% watched digital TV through either a Telenet Digital TV or INDI set top box. On the Telenet Network alone, almost 38% of our television customers now have Telenet Digital TV, which was launched in September 2005.

In addition to the digital TV platforms described above, we also have 13,000 subscribers to premium analog PayTV service delivered through an alternative platform which is only available on the Telenet PICs Network. Over time, we expect these subscribers to migrate to the Telenet Digital TV platform.

Cable TV (in 000 serviced premises):

As of and for the three months ended   Mar 2009  Mar 2008  Change %
                                       --------  --------  --------
Total                                     2,386     1,695       41%
  Analog                                  1,606     1,257       28%
  Digital (Telenet Digital TV)              716       438       63%
  Digital (INDI)                             64         "       n/a

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