Telecinco launches DTT service

Channel to show documentaries

By EMILIANO DE PABLOS, JOHN HOPEWELL

MADRID — Top Spanish broadcaster Telecinco has opened a digital terrestrial primetime window to broadcast social and eco docs via its DTT service Telecinco 2.

The Mediaset-controlled web has inked exclusive TV deals with United Nations' refugee organization ACNUR and non-governmental orgs Amnesty International and Greenpeace to fill a weekly, thematic slot on Thursday primetime.

“The documentaries of these organizations are of tremendous quality and there’s a substantial quantity of them," said Ghislain Barrois, Telecinco's DTT director.

This April, Telecinco analog channel once again led Spain’s ever-fragmenting TV market with a 19.1% share.

Multichannel TV already garners a 30.1% share in Spain, including DTT's 13%. But exclusive DTT channels still suffer from low income.

"This slot is a good fit for Telecinco 2 because it captures a minority audience that adds to, rather than detracts from, our core analog channel audience," Barrois added.

Telecinco operates two exclusive nationwide DTT channels, Telecinco 2 and FDF, with a 1.1% and 1.4% share of the Spanish thematic TV market.

DTT could — in the longterm at least — offer a new cash stream as growth of ad biz at analog channels slows.

First quarter results, announced Thursday, show advertising income broadly stable on a like-period basis.

January to March sales dropped 0.9% to Euros249 million ($397.6 million) as adjusted net profits rose 2.1%, thanks to cost-cutting, to $140.3 million.

That’s a highly creditable performance suggesting core ad growth for Telecinco of around 5%-6%, said one analyst.

The deceleration of TV ad growth is still slower than at main rival broadcaster Antena 3 TV, allowing Telecinco to hike ad prices 6% this year and charge a 10% premium compared with Antena 3 TV.

“Telecinco is doing what it does best and is also the best thing to do in the Spanish market: milk ad revenues,” said one analyst.

Despite fevered talk in Spain of pay DTT soccer — which completely ignores questions of whether it really reps a profitable business model — the likely driver for DTT in Spain will be analog switchoff, skedded for April 2010, forcing Spaniards to discover their flat screen TV’s digital capabilities.