Polsat ups subs and ARPU but programming costs rocket

Polish pay TV operator Polsat Cyfrowy has upped its subscriber base 28% year-on-year, taking the total at end-March to 2.8 million.

The annualised churn rate increased to 8.4% in the quarter but pay-TV ARPU was up 34% as the operator added a raft of channels and saw programming costs almost double.


The company recorded a 35% year-on-year increase in first-quarter revenues of PLN337m (€77m) and a 14% increase in net profit of PLN73 million.

The company’s share price has increased 12% since its May 2008 debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.


Polsat Cyfrowy reached a carriage agreement with Polish public broadcaster TVP in the first quarter of the year and has added its TVP1 and TVP2 channels to its service as well as digital channels TVP Sport and TVP Info. Polsat also agreed a carriage deal with commercial free-to-air broadcaster TVN and started carrying its bouquet of thematic channels this year. The pay-TV operator’s programming costs increased 93% year-on-year in the first quarter, taking the total to PLN97.5 million.