 BRAZIL | PAY TV |
|
|
| Claro TV: A Digital Terrestrial Future |
|
The operator's DTH service currently reaches over 5,400 cities in Brazil, and it just presented a hybrid STB in light of DTT's growth potential. Its executive director spoke about this and other projects.
|
|
|
Brazilian telco Embratel continues to display its new pay TV brand, Claro TV, to the market; which took over Via Embratel's place in early March and is now the new visual identity for América Movil's pan-regional services.
"We devised a thorough plan to modify the brand on May 1. We also changed our communication strategy for our website and sales agents, who are scattered all over Brazil as over 2,000 companies working for Claro TV," said Antonio João Filho, executive director, pay TV at Ebratel, a telecommunications giant in Brazil, managed by Carlos Slim.
This brand renovation follows América Móvil's acquisition of NET Serviços -a leading company in the industry- through which both organizations became allies (they even presented their offers at the same stand during ABTA 2012), though continue to coexist independently. "NET reaches less than 200 cities, and we are currently present in over 5,400. It's a different geographical distribution," he said, explaining how both brands can work simultaneously.
|
|
|
|
DIGITAL
The operator has just presented a new STB to the market; a hybrid that can receive both DTH and DTT signals. This is part of the company's strategy, which is working in light of DTT's growing popularity, providing a functional STB for its client base that's potentially compatible with the upcoming technologies.
At this year's ABTA, the operator also presented Videoteca Claro ("Claro Video Library") for set-top-boxes with PVR, which is a recording option located in an area of the hard drive the client didn't have access to. "We saw that even clients who hire the recording service sometimes don't have time to actually record content, which makes them even more suitable for the service," he said.
NEW REGULATIONS
"We'll still have some doubts until the networks are checked by Ancine. Still, we have been preparing over the years for this new scenario: we set up our lineup thinking about what could happen next, so we don't think we'll experience that much trouble," said João Filho about Brazil's new pay TV law.
"We believe this law will allow the market to develop further. Nowadays, the pay TV market is growing by 30% a year, and nothing else in the economy lives up to that. We think there's still room to keep up that growth rate for a few more years," he said.
In regard to the lower and middle classes recent growth, the executive stated consumption in those segments stands to stop increasing, with debt playing a key role in the matter: "I believe the abundant credit in Brazil is something relatively new, and many people who don't know a lot about finance are now in debt. I believe the C class is now learning how to administer said debt, but it's a faze it will overcome."
|
|
 |
|
Where Everything Grows
