Cignal subscribers to hit 1M this year

MANILA, Philippines - Cignal TV Inc., the pay TV arm of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), sees its subscriber base tipping the one million level this year after successfully overtaking rival SkyCable Corp. of broadcast giant ABS-CBN Corp. as the leader in the pay TV market in the country.

PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said the company is looking at booking its one-millionth subscriber within 2015 as growth is expected to pick up in the fourth quarter of the year.

 “If we are lucky by the end of this year because we are already about 844,000 so we have 160,000 to go,” Pangilinan said.

Pangilinan pointed out that subscriber growth is usually lean during the first quarter of the year before picking up in the second, third, and fourth quarters of the year.

 “The best quarters are the last two quarter,” he added.

PLDT president Napoleon Nazareno said the subscriber base of Cignal TV jumped 34 percent to over 844,000 last year from 630,000 in 2013.

 “At the end of 2014, Cignal TV had over 844,000 subscribers, surpassing the 20-year incumbent,” Nazareno said.

Cignal TV is the Philippine’s premier digital-to-the-home (DTH) satellite provider launched in 2009. It broadcasts to households and commercial venues nationwide using DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) technology.

Cignal transmits 97 channels to date, which includes free-to-air, SD, and HD. It also offers on-demand service through its pay-per-view channel, and a varied mix of 10 audio channels.

Cignal TV is a subsidiary of PLDT’s MediaQuest Holdings. MediaQuest is building new sources of revenue while developing media services to enhance and further strengthen the product offerings of the PLDT Group as a whole.

SkyCable earlier reported that its subscriber base stood at 800,000 as of end-January.

SkyCable chief operating officer Rodrigo Montinola earlier said in an interview with reporters it sees subscriber base hitting one million over the next 24 months from the current level of 800,000 subscribers.

SkyCable has diversified into cable Internet, VoIP services, and digital cable TV service since starting as a community antenna television system operation in the Philippines on Jan. 26, 1992.

SkyCable Corp. was incorporated in June 1990 via 79.3 percent stake in Sky Vision Corp., operator of cable brands, SkyCable and Sun Cable. Sky Vision is 78 percent owned by Lopez Inc. and 18.8 percent by ABS-CBN.