HAVING DECIDED last week not to release Irish subscribers’ numbers as part of its first quarter results, BSkyB’s finance chief let the cat out of the bag at a subsequent meeting with analysts in London.
Its chief financial officer Andrew Griffiths said “just over 10 per cent” of the group’s net new customer additions in the three months to the end of June were in Ireland.
That’s about 9,200 subscribers, and would give Sky 557,200 Irish customers. The satellite broadcaster is now within touching distance of UPC Ireland, which owns the NTL and Chorus cable platforms and has long been the country’s biggest provider of pay television.
Figures from UPC this week show that it had 562,600 customers here. This was 16,000 down on the previous quarter. Chief executive Robert Dunn blamed it on the slowdown in new housing and a “competitive environment”.
It might also have something to do with Sky slashing the prices of its set-top boxes.
The market is set to become even more competitive when Denis O’Brien’s Boxer consortium brings its digital terrestrial television product to market at some stage over the next 12 to 18 months.
Boxer plans to spend €20 million on branding and €6 million on marketing. It will also offer free set-top boxes to homeowners.
O’Brien knows a thing or two about building a low-cost brand from scratch and winning market share rapidly. Digicel has wiped the eye of Cable Wireless in the mobile market in the Caribbean.
His target won’t just be the 25 per cent of Irish homes that rely on an indoor aerial for their TV signal and who will have to switch to a set-top box when the analogue signal is cut in 2012.
O’Brien’s Boxer consortium has its sights trained on a bigger audience. It’s not going to baulk at taking on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky or UPC, which is owned by Colorado-based Liberty Global International.
This one promises to be a heavyweight contest.
