Malacopol: The price per TV subscriber fell three times

Digital Cable Systems (DCS), one of the biggest telecom operators domestically, controlled by AIG Capital Partners fund, this year bought cable TV operators at prices of less than 100 euros per subscriber, three times below the level registered several years ago. “This year we bought networks at very low prices; costs per subscriber dropped below 100 euros, from 250-300 euros in the past. The deals themselves were not very large in terms of value, but we set purchasing prices several times lower than in previous years on the market, which I believe is highly important,” Dinu Malacopol, DCS general manager told ZF. DCS, a company with 200,000 CATV and Internet clients and 25m-euro revenues last year, intends to boost its number of users particularly by acquiring small CATV providers. In late 2008, 517 small CATV operators had around 1 million clients, with the rest of 2.5 million clients being controlled by the biggest operators, RCS and UPC, according to data from the telecom authority. “I believe there will be a lot of sale opportunities in the next 12 months. Many players are inevitably exposed when they are not growing, are not introducing new services”.