Independent operators to focus on internet models to continue growing

During the first day of the Nextv Series Argentina event, the leading conference that took place on May 14th and 15th at the Intercontinental Hotel in Buenos Aires, organized by Dataxis, the panel ‘Video challenges for independent operators’ was developed. Virginia Priano (Digital Cablevideo), José Luis Jacquet Matillon (The Cuatro TV Jujuy), Ariel Hernández (Antina) and Dino Muñoz (Eutelsat Americas) were the speakers that took part of it.. The executives discussed about the growth of the Internet and the need to adapt the service to each location, the quality of the available networks, the current cable models development over the Internet and the satellite growth, focused on operators.

‘Classic TV models are still growing, but TV on internet do so’, said Virginia Priano, Cablevideo Digital (Argentina’s CMO & Project Manager, who, apart from highlighting how both TV models growth, expressed that the company had a 5% increase in 2018, and informed that, although 80% of the company’s clients have both services and 20% are digitized, they must still adapt the service to each location.

Related to topics mentioned above, Ariel Hernández, VP of the pay TV wireless provider Antina (Argentina), said that ‘quality networks are lacking’ in some locations of the country and, although he also indicated that the company is still in a growing process, he emphasized that currently ‘there is an unmet internet demand’, and suggested a hybrid model as an alternative to solve this problem. In this context, Jose Luis Jacquet Matillon, General Director of El Cuatro TV Jujuy (Argentina), described the cable services as ‘stagnanted’, and highlighted the company’s growth in the Internet area. The executive said that, to increase the company’s ARPU, they began to be commercial representatives of Movistar and include Quadruple Play services in their offer.

 ‘Satellite has grown again, even in countries where there is high quality internet in the cities’, said Dino Muñoz, Video Sales Director for the Southern Cone of Eutelsat Americas, who informed that ‘58% of web broadcasts are made of video content’.  In this regard, the executive stressed that in 2018 the company launched a satellite for the Southern Cone, in order to offer OTTs for a small operator. ‘The OTT satellite service is focused on operators’, he said.