Communications Regulatory Authority

In Spain, the consolidation involved the operators Auna and Ono: thanks to the
purchase of Auna, Ono was able to expand its territorial coverage, reaching almost 40%
of the entire national territory. The operator can count on a total number of around 2.2
million residential customers, of whom around 800,000 also subscribe to a television
offering. Following the acquisition, Ono became the country’s main cable operator and
chief competitor of Telefónica in the Spanish broadband market.
In Germany a group of cable operators, Unity Media, has been formed, which
heads the companies Arena, iesy, ish, and Telecolombus.
As for the services offered, the cable operators have implemented a series of
initiatives enriching their content portfolios (and related distribution services). In Spain,
Ono has launched the Video on Demand service called OJO TV, which is available in
various regions and cities where the company is present, and in the coming year it will
be extended to the areas covered by the Auna network. Furthermore, an agreement just
signed will enable the cable operator to distribute, on its own pay-per-view platform,
some of the most famous TV series of the commercial broadcaster Tele 5. Subscribers
to the OJO TV service will have access to such content one week earlier than their
airing on regular television.
In Germany, Arena, a company of the Unity Media group, has acquired the
rights for the live broadcasts of the Bundesliga matches, once held by the satellite
operator Premiere.
Digital terrestrial television
The rapid increase in the number of users of digital terrestrial television (DTT)
is, as stated above, one of the most significant events among those characterizing the
recent evolution of the European television sector. This phenomenon has been fed, on
the one hand, by the growth of the platform’s penetration in countries where it is
already present (United Kingdom and Italy, in particular) and, on the other, the launch
of the service in France and Spain.
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