Spanish satellite pay-TV platform Digital+ is on course to have two million subscribers by the end of the year after closing the 2005 first quarter with 1.7 million subscribers, Digital+ owner Sogecable said April 27.

The first quarter addition of 50,000 new subscribers is an encouraging sign for the direct-to-home operator, which had just over 1.65 million subscribers at the end of 2004.

Sogecable can break the two-million subscriber barrier if it can convert the nearly 400,000 analog subscribers to its Canal+ package to digital services by the end of the year and also hopes to boost the subscriber numbers through organic growth.

The nearly two-year-old Digital+, created by the merger of Canal Satellite Digital and Via Digital, continues to have a tough time gaining traction in the Spanish pay-TV market, however, there are signs that things are beginning to improve. Since completing the migration of Via Digital subscribers to its service in 2004 Digital+ has seen steady increases in subscriber numbers, although it still falls well short of the totals of the leading satellite pay-TV operators in Europe.

Javier Marin, a media equity analyst at Morgan Stanley told Satellite News, “The numbers are in line with our expectations. I think it is very positive to see that this is the second quarter where net digital additions are close to 50,000, especially when you consider the migration from analog to digital has had no impact in the quarter.”

–Mark Holmes

(Javier Garcia, Sogecable, jgburgos@sogecable.com; Javier Marin, Javier.marin@morganstanley.com)