p04,6,8,10,12,14,16,18-19 Euro 50 Al-Ciorcirlan NovDec08v4 7/11/08 13:10 Page 10
Euro 50 > Leaders in broadband and pay-TV Digital TV Europe
November/December 2008
Romain Bausch President and CEO, SES Didier Bellens
President and CEO, Belgacom
That satellite operator SES seems to be well-
placed to weather the current economic Belgacom passed the
storm, as well as maintaining its financial guid- 400,000-IPTV sub-
ance for this year, is in no small part due to criber mark at mid-
the leadership of Romain Bausch, the compa- year.
ny’s CEO. The company
SES expects to achieve revenue growth of launched HDTV in
approximately 5% this year, and to maintain April and has expand-
this through to 2010, enabling Bausch to ed the service to 14
confirm at the company’s last results channels. It also
announcement that SES had not been nega- secured the rights to
tively impacted by the economic crisis of the Juliper League football game for another
last few months. three years and revitalised its coverage.
SES has indeed secured financing to President and CEO Didier Bellens has
cover its needs for the next 12 months, and placed convergence at the heart of
the group plans to launch two more satel- Belgacom’s strategy. Despite the economic
lites this year, beginning with Astra 1M in downturn and a tough regulatory and com-
November, followed by four in 2009 and two petitive environment, Belgacom continues
each in 2010 and 2011. to innovate with new products and services.
Jeroen Bergman managing director, programming, UPC and managing director, Chello Benelux
Jeroen Bergman has overseen major changes years of digital TV in western Europe. Before around Europe will become more conservative,
in UPC’s programing strategy and carriage the year was over, we launched DVR and HD which will create a renewed focus on the quali-
agreements over the past year. functionality in all but one of our markets, and ty of products, customer service and brands,
we expect VOD will be available in many of and that will be good news for stable and well
Age 42 them before the second year is over. established platforms like UPC.
Education MBA from Nijenrode Business Reflections on the downturn Historically, Positive thoughts for 2009 I expect a ratio-
School and Bachelor in international business the cable industry has been more resilient to nalisation of the plethora of new TV channels
from the same school. economic downturns than most industries, and in Europe which will lead to a much higher
Liberty Global benefits from a very robust cap- average quality level of programming.
Years in industry 15 ital structure. Having said that, I expect that Furthermore, I predict further consolidation in
our approach to the business will be fine-tuned both the platform and the programming indus-
Job description Head of programming at based on the new economic climate. Firstly, as tries, which Liberty Global as the industry’s
UPC, responsible for programming strategy free cash flow is likely to receive greater focus leader is more likely to benefit from than most.
and negotiating carriage agreements for in a world in which credit is more constrained, I
UPC’s cable networks and DTH platforms anticipate that we will scrutinise our program-
across Europe. I run Liberty Global’s TV chan- ming costs even more carefully and channels
nels in UPC’s main market, the Netherlands. will have to show superior value for money to
maintain their spot in our line-up. Secondly, I
Last year’s highlights We implemented a anticipate that the waterfall of new channels
major expansion of UPC’s digital TV platforms coming to our markets will slow down to a
into central Europe, with digital launches in much more measured pace, and some of the
Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and the national recent arrivals may well disappear again. This,
rollout of digital in Czech, Romania and in my view, is actually a positive development
Slovenia. And as we have seen with the launch as it will weed out weaker channels and allow
of broadband and VOIP in central Europe, digi- the survivors to strengthen. Thirdly, I expect
tal TV functionality in this region has evolved that the extremely aggressive retail pricing
much more rapidly than it did in the early tactics of some of the newer pay-TV platforms
Visit us at www.digitaltveurope.net
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