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HD drives Foxtel revenue

Customer uptake of High Definition services on the IQ2 is driving Foxtel, which reported a 17.5% growth in earnings.

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New Foxtel subscriptions may have slowed in the current climate but company revenue for the year ended 30 June 2010 was up nearly 10% to just over $2b.

Foxtel today announced a 17.5% growth in earnings (EBITDA) to $477m for the year to 30 June 2010.

The Pay TV giant is seeing strong uptake of the Foxtel iQ2 with High Definition, including current customers adding the service. Together with iQ, combined penetration is now at 63%, and 36% of subscribers are taking Multi-Room.

Foxtel has over 1.54m direct subscriber households (including the installation queue), up 3% on the same time last year. Total subscriber households is 1.632m. Churn, the number of cancellations, is at 13.5% for the full year, around the same for the year prior.

“We continued to invest and innovate including broadcasting in February the most comprehensive Olympics coverage in Australia’s broadcasting history with the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games as well as launching Foxtel Next Generation,” CEO Kim Williams said.

33 Responses

  2. @Jellyman, no there aren’t. The overwhelming majority of kids could care less if their cartoon is in HD or not. 3 of the kids channels aren’t even widescreen, they should look at that before they worry about going HD. It will happen in the future, but you and I both know it won’t happen anytime soon (certainly not before the real holes get filled). Same goes for the music channels, anyone who wants to watch a music video in HD can find it on the internet. There aren’t nearly enough of those people for Foxtel to waste bandwidth on sending music channels HD.

    Some (like you) may feel the need for the seperation of the kids channels into smaller age categories like they have overseas (and like we have with pre-school kids here), but simply seperating the channels out further won’t create any new content. Everything that will be on in that situation is already on now. But I’m sure this’ll happen before any of them go HD.

  4. Oh, absolutely, I think that sport channels are an absolute must in HD (and I think ESPN and ESPN HD should become ESPN1 and ESPN2 both simulcast in SD and HD just like Fox Sports is).

    The main point I was trying to make however is, that yes, there are a lot of glaring holes in the current HD lineup, and secondly (and perhaps more importantly in the specific example of Speed) most of the motorsports that speed broadcasts in the US are already on the books of other stations (I think I mentioned NASCAR and F1), so I’m not sure it’s wise to allocate an HD slot to a channel that may not be successful because of this.

    Then again, I’m not into motorsport (just ball sports), so I’m probably biased.

    But if they launch 10 like they did last year (or hopefully 15), then that should go a long way to filling some of the holes, and make room for channels like Speed HD. But I think the future is bright. There was another article on this site about high HD uptake driving Foxtel’s profits, so hopefully that will sway them towards launching more.

  5. @ Ararat – i agree that it is pointless to introduce a new channel and allow it to go HD straight away when there are so many entertainment, movie and doco channels that should be HD. However I have to say i cant wait for Speed to start. We are such a sport orientated country and yet we have shit all sport channels. I have been hoping one of the australian networks would buy the rights for ages because our sports packages are just disgraceful. We Should have ESPN 2 and ESPN Classic, and potentially FOX SPORTS 4. Like when Sky Racing launched their 2 new channels a couple of months ago im like well thats great for the horse/dog gamblers but what about the more popular sports of basketball, baseball, football (NFL, NRL, etc.), soccer, hockey, etc.

  6. Hmm, if they are introducing Speed HD, I would hope that they are getting a lot more HD channels, because as has been pointed out, it’s the entertainment area where the HDs are currently lacking (and a couple of the doco channels).

    It would be interesting how a channel like Speed will go in a country where One has the rights to the Formula One, and ESPN has the rights to the NASCAR. What exactly are they going to broadcast?

    But yeah, the date of November 1 certainly makes sense, as it will be 1-2 weeks after the Commonwealth Games have finished, freeing up a lot of bandwidth for new launches.

  10. @ Jellyman – I totally agree!! You have already mentioned about Nick and Disney Channels’ sister channels that are not broadcast in Aust. but also Disney Cinemagic and ABC Family are also family/kids channels that should be offered. I however have to disagree about launching them in HD for now. Until all our popular entertainment, movie and sports channels are launched in HD then there is no point seeing cartoons being upscaled.
    And with your comment about another MTV channel I have to completely disagree!! Yes bring on the next channel (which MTV has guaranteed will launch before the end of the year) but definitely not MTV Hits as we already have V Hits and having two of the same channel is just a waste of bandwidth. I think a better idea would be MTV Dance, MTV Base or MTV Rocks. These channels allow them to stand out from V and MAX as they are different from the MAX shuffle of everything from the past 50 years, and V’s shuffle of the past 20 years. (My opinion)

  12. @ David – I totally agree!! In the U.S. they are currently offering life-time free HD access to new subscribes (I refer to DirecTV when referring to U.S. pay tv), and not only are they charging nothing for HD channels, they are charging US$60 (roughly AU$67 and not including the price for the HD set-top box which is US$10) and you get over 285 SD channels and over 105 HD channels. Now can someone tell me how it is fair that i am paying $85 for a standard set-top box and no movie channels and yet if i lived in the states I could spend $15 less and get 6 times better value and quality!!
    @ Knowfirst – are you referring to Speed the U.S. channel dedicated to automative racing?? I have been hoping they would launch the channel here for ages as we have shit all sports channels!! But will it be available in SD as well as HD??

  13. Ararat – just trust me.

    Speed HD commences Nov 1, plus there’s likely to be several more channels.

    Foxtel/Austar use the summer months to go heavy on the new material as free tv goes to sleep in Summer.

  14. @Knowfirst. How do you know this?

    DansDans, there are Not over 20 HD channels. There are only 16, and that’s IF you include the near useless 3D channel (when is there anything on).

    And if you don’t want to hear ppl complain, then you don’t want to read a forum on the internet. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what ppl do.

    By the way, you’re the first to suggest Help Channel HD, and while I get your point (some suggestions are a bit rich… there is no way known we’re gonna get 5 kids channels in HD before a lot of other channels go HD), we are a long way behind countries in Europe and North America which have 50+ HD channels.

  16. Going on the comments on this site…

    “Foxtel should have, like, 1 Million HD channels – like for stuff like TVSN HD and Help Channel HD”

    Fair Dinkum people – there is over 20 HD channels. Is that not enough?

    1. I actually think a better question than “Why aren’t there more HD channels” is “If I subscribe to a channel, and I pay for iQ2 (which is HD capable), why am I being slugged extra to get the same channel in HD?”

  17. Since moving into an apartment building with satellite, I had to downgrade from iQ1 to a standard box, as there is onyl one ariel feed in each apartment, and satellite needs two. I wish Foxtel would bring out a single tuner iQ for those customers who cant have the normal iQ. This would boost some upgrades for people like me.

  18. Hmmm, thinking about going towards foxtel HD – It seems now that the free to air stations are falling apart with lack of content and lack of HD choice.
    Stopped watching free to air as much when they were aiming at 1 to 25 y/o and forsaking the rest of the nation.
    But maybe with choice we can find a show or two that might be fit for grownups.

  19. I love my iQ2. Along with the the HD channels, it just has better pic quality on the SD channels than on our old iQ and you can record two things and watch a third at the same time! I would love it to be intuitive like the TiVO though. And if the free-to-air networks would simulcasts in HD on it too.

  20. Well good on them but when are they going to be offering more HD channels like Arena, Sky News, TV1, Movie Extra etc? Also they should have all sport played in Australia shown in HD not just 65% of the time.

  21. I’m actually really glad with Foxtel HD, I wasn’t sold on it when we first got it, since they hardly had any channels, but they’re slowing bringing in more and more.

    And yes, I know not all content on the HD channel is HD, but it’s good to have some extra channels. Love having extra documentary channels.

    The only thing I feel is ‘repeated’ too much on Foxtel, is the movie channels. I hardly see any of the old school movies I used to see on Foxtel back in the day. You get the occasional good one, but sometimes it feels like all the movies that were shown three weeks ago, are being repeated again.

    I know, one of the pitfalls of Foxtel. But I’m still happy.

  23. Yeah and we need Nicktoons or Teennick, Disney XD, MTV Hits, Nickelodeon +2 and HD, Disney Channel +2 and HD and Cartoon Network +2 and HD for a 4th Quarter 2010 or 1st Quarter 2011 Launch.

  24. If there is such a strong uptake for Foxtel HD then why is there still a distinct lack of HD channels. Also why are they wasting a HD channel on Starpics 2. Lastly why aren’t more shows that air on Discovery like Mythbusters, Man Vs. Wild and American Chopper not broadcast on Discovery HD.

  25. I really like Fox8HD, but im really waiting for Austar to finally give customers Discovery HD and Nat Geo HD. I would also really like Scifi HD and Arena HD.

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