Cignal seen to dominate local cable TV industry

MANILA, Philippines - Cignal TV Inc. is in a fighting stance.  Early this year, the country’s fastest growing subscriber-based TV firm formed an alliance with international TV giant, Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia. The pact, which took two years of negotiations to forge, made Cignal the first to launch Disney XD, Walt Disney’s newest TV channel, in the Philippines – and in high definition. Starting last May 31, kids channel Disney XD landed on the TV screens of over 600,000 homes subscribed to Cignal nationwide.

“The newest channel will redefine every kid’s viewing habit with its action and comedy offerings that primarily cater to 6 to 14-year-olds,” says Cignal TV COO and managing director Annie P. Naval.  “The reason we subscribe to pay TV is we want to be entertained and not get bored with the same shows and programs over and over again.”

Disney XD is a boy-focused, girl-inclusive channel, available in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and now, the Philippines within the Southeast Asian region.  Worldwide, there are 29 Disney XD channels in 25 languages, reaching over 240 million households in 142 countries and territories.

“We are excited to launch Disney XD and bring a world of superheroes, action, and comedy to kids and families in the Philippines,” says Natasha Malhotra, Walt Disney Southeast Asia’s general manager for Branded Media Content.  Malhotra describes the Philippines as a good market for Disney XD, which features Marvels TV series and even the new Star Wars TV series of Lucas film, which took the world by storm more than 30 years ago.

Well, the saga continues, as more than half of the nationwide population is under the age of 24 and more than half of them live in urban areas, the focus of pay TV business. The figures are in a 2010 report made on the Philippines by the Hongkong-based Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA).

In its 2010 report titled “Philippines in View,” the group anticipated the pay TV industry’s being shaken up and energized by the entry of Cignal into the market,  buoyed by investments made by its mother firm, MediaQuest Holdings Inc., the media arm of telco behemoth Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).

In 2012, PLDT fortified Cignal’s finances with a P1.2 billion investments through Philippine Depository Receipts sold by MediaQuest to sister company e-PLDT.

 Though Cignal’s growth has not been exactly in the speed of light, it has grown by leaps and bounds since its launch in 2009, overtaking erstwhile pay TV market leader SkyCable of the Lopez Group.  Cignal has been doubling its subscriber base yearly since 2010.

“We are now the biggest single-brand pay TV company in the Philippines,” says Guido R. Zaballero, Cignal TV vice president and head of marketing.  As of December 31 last year, he says, Cignal got over 600,00 subscribers against SkyCable’s 550,000 and newly-acquired Destiny Cable’s  210,000.

 Zaballero adds Cignal has even gotten past the 700,000 mark as of end of April this year, including the pre-paid subscribers that cater even to the C-1 class.

Cignal has levelled up the competition, not just among its fellow direct-to-home (DTH) Satellite TV firms.  Zabellero says Cignal dominates the DTH market, capturing about 90 percent market share, and leaving a miniscule 10 percent to DTH TV pioneer Dream TV, which started in 2001, and fellow relatively newcomer G-Sat of Solar Group.

 Indeed, Cignal has made it a battle between the dishes and the wires, aiming for pay TV domination with at least one million subscribers by year-end.