Romanian DTH subscribers fall for first time

The number of subscribers to pay TV and cable services in Romania fell by almost 100,000 to 5.73 million in the first half of 2010, according to figures provided by regulator ANCOM.

Cãtãlin Marinescu, the president of ANCOM, told a cable conference in Bucharest that the number of DTH subscribers fell from 2.26 million to 2.33 million, the first time the highly-competitive DTH market had experienced a fall in the number of customers. The number of cable customers also fell.

Overall, digital TV households stood at 2.6 million, including 350,000 digital cable customers. While IPTV grew 17 times, the overall subscriber base still stands at only 0.2% of the pay TV total.