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| SKY digitization in full swing |
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SKYCABLE Corp.’s drive to go digital is now in high gear, with the company targeting to convert at least 80% of its subscribers from the analog platform by the end of the year. To date, 60% of SKY subscribers are still on analog transmission. Of the estimated 500,000 subscribers, about 200,000 are based in Metro Manila.
The move is seen to help curb, if not totally eliminate, cable TV signal piracy. With digitization, only TV sets hooked up to digital set-top boxes, where the channels are encrypted, can receive signals. SKY in 2009 had invested around P700 million largely for its shift from analog to digital. Of this amount, at least P200M was spent to install more digital set-top boxes among its subscribers, said chief operations officer Carlo Katigbak. As of March 2009, the company had installed 90,000 digital boxes, with another batch of 60,000 to 70,000 boxes scheduled to be installed in Metro Manila alone. To date, SKY, which had earlier acquired the assets of PLDT subsidiary Home Cable Corp. in a share-swap scheme, has poured around $2M for the station’s headend and around $4.5M for the acquisition of digital set-top boxes. The share-swap scheme resulted in the Lopez Group’s ending up with a 66.67% share in Home Cable and the PLDT Group 33.33%. After the conversion into equity of debts extended by ABS-CBN Corp., ABS-CBN now holds a majority stake in SKY. Comments (0)
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