Leading Italian pay-TV operator Telepiu has released the latest subscriber figures for its analogue and digital services. According to company president and CEO Michel Thoulouze, Telepiu has 500,000 analogue and 1,800,000 digital subscribers. These figures put Italy in second place in Europe for pay-TV subscribers, right behind France, which has 4,4 million subscribers. The football service, +Calcio has signed up 470,000 subscribers, a significant increase compared to the 262,514 registered a year earlier.

Eleven football clubs (the maximum allowed by law) – Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Inter, Juventus, Milan, Perugia, Piacenza, Reggina, Torino and Verona have signed a six-year exclusive contract with Telepiu. Juventus has proved the most popular registering 31 per cent of the preferences, followed by Inter (28 per cent) and Milan (18 per cent). Additionally, every Sunday Telepiu sells on average 35,000 individual matches as PPV events.

There have also been encouraging figures regarding the take-up of the digital offer by bars and restaurants, with a total of 8,000 subscriptions. For an annual subscription fee of L8 million (Pounds 2,608), interested public catering facilities gain access to live Italian league football as well as other products such as Eurosport, Match Music and the digital audio offer Multimusica.

During the course of this year, Telepiu has invested more than L500 billion (Pounds 163 million) in TV rights, while the total sum invested since the launch of pay-TV services tops the L2,000 billion (Pounds 652 million) mark. Thoulouze predicts that Telepiu will start making the first profits during 2001.