SkyCable sees 80% of Metro subscribers shifting to digital

MANILA, Philippines - Leading cable television company SkyCable said it expects to end the year with over 80 percent of its subscribers in Metro Manila having shifted to digital from analog.

SkyCable marketing head Rodrigo Montinola said out of their 250,000 subscribers in Metro Manila, they anticipate more than 80 percent to digitize their cable services with the installation of digital set-top boxes (DigiBox) by the end of 2010. By the end of next year, the cable TV company expects the shift to cover 95 percent of their Metro Manila subscriber base.

Of SkyCable’s 500,000 subscribers nationwide, half are in Metro Manila while the rest are in the provinces.

Montinola said in the case of the provincial areas, they have already started offering the shift to digital in Cebu and Davao. “We are doing it on a roll-out basis and progressively in the provinces, depending on demand, and considering that rolling out outside of Metro Manila can be costly,” he explained.

So far, SkyCable has already invested P500 million to allow its subscribers to shift from analog to digital, a move aimed not only at curbing signal piracy but also to give the subscribers the flexibility and the ability to customize content.

For this year, the company, a unit of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp., has allotted P1 billion for capital expenditures, of which around 60 percent went to cable and 40 percent to the broadband business. For 2011, SkyCable is budgeting another P1 billion for capex.

Montinola said SkyCable registered a 48-percent growth in new connections this year compared to last year. “We expect to sustain our subscriber growth in 2011,” he added.

He also revealed that from 10 percent this year, they expect 25 percent of their subscribers to hook into SkyCable Select next year.

The Lopez-owned cable company’s aggressive move to be at the forefront of providing consumers with choices of how, what, when, and where they watch television content was ushered in by the introduction of SkyCable Select, an innovative service that powers the DigiBox, a digital set-top box that gives subscribers more flexibility and choice to tailor-fit their own cable TV lineup by allowing them to pick and choose the channels they want added to any basic cable package that they have.

This move to offer full digital service will culminate with the launch of another first-of-its kind service in the country - the personal video recorder (PVR) system which SkyCable will be launching in the first quarter of next year.

Also known as a digital video recorder, the PVR is a device that records TV into a hard drive in digital format. Unlike video and DVD recorders, there is no need for tapes or disks. PVRs give subscribers the ability to pause live TV, instantly replay scenes just watched while continuing to record. It is similar to TiVO, the world’s first digital video recorder which has a very large following in the United States.

The shift from analog to digital using the DigiBox, according to Montinola, will allow the offering of other services in the future. “The zenith would be video on demand (VOD). Using the box and television, one would be able to get movies and other shows on demand,” he said.

The SkyCable official also revealed that they have recorded a seven-fold increase in the high definition (HD) subscriber base.