At the end of June 2008 the total number of subscribers to the service of subscription television rose to 2.1 million, representing around 20 subscribers per 100 inhabitants.
The cable TV distribution service comprises around 70% of subscribers, while DTH represents around 24.5%. Other technologies represent around 5.5% of the customers of this service.
Looking at the different regions, in Madeira and Lisbon cable TV dominates, while in Alentejo, the Centre and Azores over 45% of subscribers use DTH. Lisbon has the highest penetration of IP based TV - 7.8%, further extending its relative position in the market.
During the period being reported, Grupo ZON's (Zon Multimédia, Zon Açores and Zon TV Cabo Madeirense) share of subscribers stood at 74.3%, while Cabovisão had a share of 14%. PTC's share reached 5.4%, followed by TvTel with 3.4%. The other alternative providers accounted for 2.9% of subscribers.
Looking at the technologies, with respect to cable television, in the second quarter there were 4.21 million cabled households, 75 thousand more households than in the previous quarter and 281 thousand more than recorded at the same time in 2007.
The increases seen reflect, above all, the expansion of the networks of the principle operators in the Greater Porto area and of various operators in the Greater Lisbon areas.
The Alentejo continues to be the region with the biggest percentage year-on-year increase in the number of cabled households, due to the introduction of cable distribution networks by an alternative operator in the area of the Alto Alentejo at the end of 2007.
In the second quarter of 2008, the number of subscribers to the cable television service totalled around 1.5 thousand subscribers, in line with the previous quarter. Compared to the same quarter of 2007, this figure rose by 2.9%, representing the addition of around 42 thousand new subscribers.
Of these users, 466 thousand benefited from the use of digital formats, corresponding to 31% of the total CDS subscriber base. Almost half of these subscriber were located within the Lisbon region, while Madeira was the region with the highest penetration rate of digital format subscribers (64%).
In the period being reported, in line with the previous quarter, cable television service subscribers represented around 27% of all Portuguese households. Meanwhile the penetration rate calculated in terms of cabled households reached 39%.
The television distribution service using Direct To Home (DTH) technology grew by 5.1% over the previous quarter and 18% compared to the same quarter of 2007. In absolute terms, DTH now has 525 thousand subscribers, 26 thousand more than in the previous quarter, and 80 thousand more than in the same quarter of the previous year.
The growth of this form of television distribution seen during this period is due, above all, to the DTH offer of the main operators of the electronic communication markets. This operator uses this technology as a complement to its offer supported over the fixed telecommunications network. At the end of June, there were DTH customers in all the country's municipalities and all municipalities had, at the very least, two DTH offers.
The regions of the North and Centre continue to be those registering the highest growth in absolute terms. However, percentage growth rates in all regions are very high.
The North and Centre Regions are also those with the highest number of subscribers to this service, both with over 30% of the total.
As far as offers supported over the fixed telephone network and FWA are concerned, during the period being reported, there were two offers supported over the fixed telephone network and one using FWA. These offers had a total of 118 thousand subscribers as at the end of June, already representing 5.5% of the total subscriber base of subscription television.
As of the second quarter of the year, these offers were only available on the mainland, particularly in the Lisbon region, which has over half of all the country's subscribers, and in Greater Porto.
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