By Jonathan Easton
A Chilean investment firm has reached an agreement with AT&T to buy DirecTV’s Venezuelan business.
Scale Capital SA, whose managing partner Oliver Flogel is Telefonica Chile’s former CEO, announced the move and restored the operator’s signal on Friday, following the decision of debt-encumbered AT&T to shut down operations in May.
Operating within the existing DirecTV infrastructure, Scale Capital said that the service will be free for the first 90 days and that former DirecTV head, Alexander Elorriaga will take over as the new company director.
Prior to the abrupt shutdown, DirecTV was the leader in the local pay TV market with approximately 45 per cent of Venezuela’s total pay TV users.
Financial terms have not been disclosed, but it is unlikely to have made a significant dent in AT&T’s US$151 billion debt.
While the company’s video business has struggled in recent times – it lost almost a million customers in the latest quarter alone – the decision to pull out of Venezuela was not financially driven and instead was motivated by politics.
In May, the operator announced that it would cease operating in the country due to being caught between restrictions imposed as a result of US sanctions and mandates from the Venezualan government to heavily censor content.
In the fallout, president Nicolás Maduro jailed three DirecTV executives on suspicion of fraud, boycott and destabilising the economy. The three execs, Hector Rivero, Carlos Villamizar and Rodolfo Carrano, were prohibited from leaving the country on July 13 and were ordered to appear before a court every 15 days. Having been pulled into intelligence police headquarters in Caracas, they were released on Friday night after the signal was restored.
The president took to state TV after the signal was rTDC sees TV subscribers and revenues drop as it preps revamp
By Stuart Thomson
TV and internet services contributed to a sharp decline in revenues for Denmark’s TDC in the first half of this year, with sales dropping by 5.9 per cent to DKK8.041 billion(US$1.28billion). EBITDA also dropped – by 2.8 per cent – to DKK3.273 billion.
The operator’s TV base continued to decline, with a decline in demand for antenna upgrades and services to third-party antennal organisations also contributing to the slide in revenues.
TDC had 1.069 million TV subscribers at the end of June, down 41,000 quarter-on-quarter and down 145,000 year-on-year.
Service provider arm Nuuday saw its TV revenues fall from DKK988 million to DKK864 million in the second quarter, and declines in TV also hit network arm TDC Net.
TV gross profit declined by 19.4 per cent year-on-year. TDC said that this was driven by an RGU erosion that decreased TV revenue substantially compared to Q2 last year. Content costs in Q2 were lower than same period last year, but the revenue loss was greater than the cost saving, resulting in a lower TV gross profit margin. On the bright side, the telco said that throughout Q2, the net add trend improved compared to Q4 and Q1.
TV ARPU declines by DKK4 in the quarter to DKK261 a month.
TDC plans to revamp its YouTV offering later this summer, with the launch of a TV and streaming service, bringing content together in a single app and allowing customers to choose a mix of TV channels and streaming services.
TV-related highlights of the second quarter for TDC included a trial with public broadcaster YV2 of 5G in Helsingør.
Overall, TDC posted revenues of DKK8.401 billion for the first half, down 5.9 per cent, and EBITDA of DKK3.27 billion, down 2.7 per cent.estored and said: “I hope the reconnection is made and that Venezuela continues to strengthen all its television systems.”
