Liberty Media’s Chello records record subscribers

Website: Rapid TV News

Digital subscription channels Film1 and Sport1, owned by Liberty Media’s Chello division, have reported a record number of 430,000 subscribers as at Feb 1 2010.

This is a growth of up to 18% for 2009 and 2.5 times as much since the channels were launched in 2006. Film1 On Demand, which allows Film1 subscribers to choose from over a hundred films, is another success story.

Since August 2008, 3.8 million films have been accessed using this service. Sport1 also announced that it has reached an agreement with KPN Interactive TV.

Jeroen Bergman, managing director at Chello Benelux, said that “After a few difficult years in the beginning, we are now posting figures in the black. This had already worked out for Film1 and we expect Sport1 to break even soon too. All this is thanks to tougher negotiations for broadcasting rights and an increase in the number of subscriptions. We have great expectations for 2010 due to continued strong growth in the number of digital TV households and the positive influence of the soccer World Cup in South Africa.”