5 - 7 March 2013: The Lancaster Hotel, London

Cable Looking to “Harvest its Investments” in 2011

Monetization and evolution of next generation networks, new services and continued brand strength seen as key to future growth

(Cable Congress, Lucerne, 15 February) Europe’s cable industry can look forward to solid growth in 2011, with monetisation of existing network technology topping the agenda at most networks and further, incremental, growth expected from new business initiatives including mobile and content, senior media industry executives agreed on the first day of Cable Congress 2011 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

“2011 will be the year we will harvest on our investments. We’ve been making promises to our consumers, regulators and even our competitors about what we are capable of, and now we are proving that we can deliver on these promises,” said Manuel Kohnstamm, President, Cable Europe.“We know Broadband will be big this year but we are delivering on digital TV too, where we saw revenues grow by 23% in 2010.”

Questioned on priorities for 2011, Mike Fries, Chief Executive Officer, Liberty Global, emphasized his core business focus while keeping options for new projects open,“We have a ton of stuff to get done in our core business and all our capital is being invested in building scale in our content platform. Then, I think content will come to us. When it comes to mobile, I think they would rather be in my business more than I would like to be in theirs. Mobile operators are facing CAPEX and bandwidth requirements: If we do anything in this space, it will be a capital-light MVNO project.”

Rosalia Portela, Chief Executive Officer, ONO, insisted the rewards of long term investment in infrastructure were already in terms of brand equity as well as financially.“In order to have a strong brand you need to offer customers a very simple solution and do it well. Cable is very reliable and very good quality and if we’ve proven that, if we can keep our customers happy, they will stay with us for a long time.”

Questioned on the regulatory environment for cable in Europe, Bernard Dijkhuizen, Chief Executive Officer, Ziggo, the Netherlands’largest cable operator, told delegates that he believed that Brussels remained largely supportive of the cable sector. “We’ve already met the criteria of the digital agenda, but Europe’s media landscape is changing dramatically and the regulator needs to be very aware of this fact: the smartest thing they can do is let us get on with serving our customers with the best products and services.”

For more information, please contact:
Gregg Svingen
Director of Communications
M: +32 476 490 603
E: [email protected]

About Cable Europe
Cable Europe is a trade association that groups all leading broadband cable TV operators and their national associations throughout Europe. The aim of Cable Europe is to promote and defend the industry’s policies and business interests at European and international levels, and to foster cooperation among its members. The European cable TV industry services more than 94 million broadband, TV and telephony subscriptions throughout the EU 27 (around 70 million households).
www.cable-europe.eu

Download the Press Release (PDF):  Cable_looking_Harvest_its_Investments_in_2011