OTE TV all but matches Nova’s client base
Following the introduction in Greece of a new tax for pay-TV subscribers on June 1, the country’s two digital satellite pay-TV platforms are now almost level in terms of subscriber numbers for the first time.
Confirmation came on Monday when Forthnet announced that its Nova subsidiary’s pay-TV customers dropped almost 10 percent year-on-year to 460,250 households at the end of June, while rival OTE TV had reported 459,000 subscribers for the end of the second quarter earlier this month.
Despite the fierce competition though, Forthnet was on Monday happy to announce a remarkable 11.6 percent increase in advertising revenues in the first half of the year from a year earlier, to 4.14 million euros, bucking the market’s downward trend.
The Athens-listed telecommunications operator posted a 9.5 percent annual fall in group revenues in H1, but the recent deal reached with banks for the refinancing of its loans and the approval of the issue of a convertible bond of 99 million euros are positive signs for its future.
