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Foxtel subscriptions rise to 2.9m

Foxtel’s total subscribers are up 8.1%, in results that are good news given the competition from Streaming.

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Telstra has announced its Half Yearly Results for the six months ended December 31 which includes some numbers for Foxtel that are good news.

Foxtel’s total subscribers have risen from 2.6 million to nearly 2.9 million, a rise of 8.1%. Broadcast subscriber growth is up 7.4 per cent. IPTV subscriber numbers, which include Foxtel on T-Box, Bigpond movies and Foxtel Presto is also up 17.9%, from 190,000 to 224,000 -the latter is not broken out as a separate figure.

Revenue is up 5.5 per to $1.66 billion, however, higher programming costs saw earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) slip by 7.7 per cent to $434 million.

Significantly the churn rate, at which subscribers cancel, is down 1.2 percentage points from 11.4%. That’s despite the heated competition from Streaming players.

Several observers have noted that the arrival of Streaming has actually shifted Australia’s reticence to pay for entertainment, with over STV numbers (being Pay TV + Streaming) up across the board.

“People aren’t cord-cutting. They are keeping their Foxtel but viewership is fragmenting. They are watching differently,” Brian Walsh recently told TV Tonight.

“We welcome competition. It will make Foxtel a more robust and stronger company. It’s great for the viewer and consumer.”

Source: Business Insider, The Australian

14 Responses

  1. Due to Australia’s small consumer audience Foxtel have taken their subscribers somewhat for granted for a number of years until Netflix and others came along, but as a suggestion it will sooner rather than later have to upgrade it’s subscribers into the HD age as standard and not as it’s premium option. Later, UHD will be next on the desirable list.

  2. Those figures are not the real truth about Foxtel increasing subscriber numbers,it includes those that have signed up to presto why did they do this its deceptive. Do we know how many were presto subscribers.it would be nice to get a break down.

  3. “the arrival of Streaming has actually increased Australians’ reticence to pay for their entertainment”. I’ve certainly got a greater reticence/reluctance/restraint to open my wallet! The moths are quite happy in there.

  4. Foxtel still has a lot to offer over streaming. Shows like the Walking Dead and GoT on fast track, as well as originals like Wentworth and APTCH. Of course Sport is the big drawcard for many, but personally even if I didn’t care about sports I’d still subscribe for the entertainment packages.

    3. Well there’s a few factors at play here. One being the clearly stated fact that they still have a significant churn rate of 11%. The second being is that many people have more than one box and could be returning their extra boxes. People could also be moving house and so on. Lots of reasons someone would bring in non-faulty a box to return that doesn’t change the fact they’re seeing decent subscriber growth in a time of intense competition and general anti-foxtel public sentiment.

  6. A Place to Call Home on SoHo brought huge numbers for the network, averaging 165,000 (first airing) … could that also be a reason for the increase in subscriptions David?

  9. Don’t expect to see this reported in Fairfax media. They’ve been claiming the death of Foxtel for the last year. Started roughly when they launched Stan come to think about it.

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