Telus again leads 2012 TV customer additions as overall TV growth tumbles

Telus Corp. added more subscribers to its TV, Internet and wireless services than any other Canadian company in the 2012 fiscal year as cable companies faced accelerated TV subscriber losses, according to data compiled by The Wire Report. The Wire Report compiled subscriber figures for Canada's largest, publicly traded communications companies, which showed fibre-based IPTV growth, cable TV subscriber losses, and, nationally, an overall tumble in TV subscriber growth. Combined, Canada's top eight, publicly traded broadcast distributors added a net 95,116 TV subscribers during their 2012 fiscal years, representing collective growth of 0.86 per cent. That is a significant fall from 3 per cent collective TV subscriber growth in 2011, and the number could continue to slide into overall negative growth in 2013, Alan Breznick, a senior analyst with Heavy Reading, said in a phone interview after viewing the numbers. “It could go that way. The pay TV pie could get smaller,” Breznick said, pointing to the rising popularity of over-the-top, online video services as a factor causing fewer TV subscriptions. “It’s happening in cable companies now and it could well happen to the phone companies down the line, because the overall pay TV pie is barely growing now and everybody’s scraping for market share.” In year-end numbers reported in February, Telus said its Internet protocol television (IPTV) service, which telcos run on fibre networks, added 169,000 subscribers during the 2012 fiscal year that ended Dec. 31. BCE Inc., which gained the second-largest number of TV subscribers in 2012, added 52,404 TV customers in its fiscal year ending Dec. 31, subscriber growth that amounts to 116,596 fewer than Telus. BCE’s total TV subscriber base at the end of the year was 2,115,243 customers (including Internet and satellite), the company said in February, while Telus, which is newer to the broadcast distribution business, reported a total TV subscriber base of 678,000. The telcos’ TV gains came at the expense of rival cablecos Shaw Communications Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Cogeco Cable Inc. and Vidéotron Ltd. (owned by Québecor Media Inc.), all of which reported net TV losses in their 2012 fiscal years, collectively losing 173,933 TV subscribers. Quebecor reported its year-end 2012 results on Thursday. Media Technology Monitor (MTM), a joint-research project between CBC/Radio-Canada and BBM Analytics, said in a survey released this week that the number of people in Canada who do not have a TV service has doubled over the past three years. The survey of 8,011 Canadians across Canada found that, nationally, the number of people without a television subscription or free, over-the-air TV, has risen from 4 per cent in 2010 to 7 per cent in 2011 and now to 8 per cent in 2012. “The internet is now a practical alternative to regular TV for light viewers of television,” the MTM report said. Bell Aliant Inc., which operates a fibre network in Atlantic Canada and is majority owned by BCE, added 45,960 IPTV subscribers in its fiscal 2012 year, for annual growth of 59.64 per cent and a total TV subscriber base of 123,020 at the end of the year. MTS Inc., operating in Manitoba, added 1,685 fibre-based IPTV subscribers, bringing its total TV subscriber base to 101,550 as of Dec. 31, 2012. In a year-end financial statement released in October, cable company Shaw, the country’s largest TV provider which competes directly with Telus in Western Canada, said it lost 69,563 TV subscribers (including satellite and cable TV) in its 2012 fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2012. The company reported a loss of 47,901 TV customers during the previous year. Shaw's TV subscriber base totalled 3,129,095 at the end of its 2012 fiscal year. Rogers, also a cable company, lost 83,000 subscribers in its fiscal year that ended Dec. 31, a drop from a loss of 14,000 a year earlier, putting its total TV subscriber base at 2,214,000, the company said in February. Cable company Cogeco, which operates in Quebec and Ontario, lost 14,870 TV subscribers in its fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2012, after posting a net gain of 3,480 TV customers a year earlier, the company said in November. Vidéotron said Thursday that it lost 6,500 TV subscribers in its 2012 fiscal year that ended Dec. 31, after reporting a net growth of 49,900 TV subscribers in 2011. MTM said in its survey results this week that IPTV subscriptions accounted for 14 per cent of all television services in English-speaking Canada in the fall of 2012, up from 9 per cent in the fall of 2011 and from 1 per cent in 2007. IPTV take-up was highest in western provinces, MTM said, with cable customers accounting for 48 per cent of all television subscriptions in the English market in the fall of 2012, down from 52 per cent a year earlier and from 62 per cent in 2007. The Wire Report also compiled subscriber numbers to compare the companies' Internet and wireless segments. Telus led in Internet subscriber additions in 2012, growing its subscriber base by 73,000 customers, or 5.68 per cent, to a total of 1,359,000. The company added 57,000 subscribers in 2011. BCE, the country’s largest Internet provider with a base of 2,115,243 customers, grew its subscribers by 2,491, or 0.12 per cent, during 2012, after it decommissioned its WiMax fixed wireless service and closed a Montreal cable business, causing the loss of 20,953 Internet subscribers, the company said in a financial statement. In fiscal 2012, Rogers grew its Internet subscriber base by 71,000 customers, or 3.96 per cent, to a total of 1,864,000. That growth was slower than in 2011, when the company added 83,000 Internet subscribers. Shaw reported 34,999 new Internet customers in 2012 and 1,912,230 total Internet subscribers at the end the year. In mobile wireless, Telus again led with 330,000 net additions in 2012 and BCE added 253,550. Rogers, the country’s largest wireless provider with 9,437,000 customers, added 102,000 new subscribers for an annual growth rate of 1.09 per cent in 2012 after adding 358,000 subscribers, for a growth rate of 3.99 per cent, in 2011. That change reflects a loss of 170,000 prepaid subscribers in 2012 after the company added 109,000 prepaid subscribers in 2011. Videotron, a new entrant carrier that first entered the wireless market in September 2010, said in a year-end 2012 statement Thursday that it added 112,000 mobile subscribers in 2012. —With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca

Telus again leads 2012 TV customer additions as overall TV growth tumbles

News | 03/14/2013 7:21 pm EDT

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