German pay-TV operator Premiere has been seeing strong demand for its new Bundesliga (German soccer) packages in Germany. The company announced August 2 that it had sold 45,000 subscriptions in less than two weeks, and that it expects to sell around 200,000 subscriptions before the end of the month.

Premiere lost the Bundesliga rights in late 2005 to Arena, a subsidiary of cable company Unity Media, and Premiere’s subscriber growth had suffered as a result

It is unlikely that Premiere will lose such valuable rights again, said Sarah Simon, a media equity analyst at Morgan Stanley. “Premiere has secured access to the Bundesliga and this should restore subscriber and [average revenue per user] growth which have suffered (although not as much as had been anticipated) in the past 18 months,” she said in an Aug. 3 research note. “Premiere also looks well-placed to maintain this access to the Bundesliga beyond the 2008-2009 season as we do not see any significant competition at the next tender.”