Digital cable boosts subscriber, revenue and profits in Canada

OTTAWA - The cable industry saw solid signs of an end to the erosion of its traditional customer base in 2004. The number of cable television subscribers 7.6 million at the end of August 2004, up 0.4% from a year earlier. “This modest increase followed four consecutive years of decline during which the industry lost a total of 442,000 multi-channel video services customers," says a report on the industry issued today by Statistics Canada.Despite the turnaround, the overall market share of cable operators continued to decline last year as the two DTH companies continued to sign up new customers, albeit...