Up Next for Buyouts: Cable TV

Cable will consolidate through the acquisition of smaller operators, but also look for the potential acquisition or merger of cable giants. Both the need for nationwide mobile services, and efficiency of scale will drive these developments. But don't be surprised to see cable grow beyond cable by acquisition.

The two largest cable firms in Germany, the world's largest cable-TV market, are currently coming to the market.  Kabel Deutschland, operating in 13 out of 16 German States, is a 1 bn € company.  With an operating EBITDA margin of less than 40%, the firm is going to be able to perform better with new management.  The current holding structure also have to be altered, to provide...

1. Could Charter, Cox and Cable Vision be targets in the next round of consolidation?  2. Will AT&T look to acquire DIRECTV or Echostar to create a quick fix?

The article has referred to the fragmented indian market more in the manner of passing than any detailed focussed investigative activity. It may be pertinent to note that india with a population of over 1.1 billion people has nearly 200 million households. The penetration of cable TV is India is a success story arguably even better than the growth of telecom penetration. The fragmented nature of the...

Other than Insight, Bresnan and MediaCom, there are few consolidation opportunities. The economics of cable advanced services (VOD, Telephony and Data) does not play well for the smaller providers.

In emerging telecom market of India, 80 M cable homes provide huge business opportunity to offer multi play service of voice, broad band internet, TV, VoD, music, photos, lottery and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC). Cable homes are growing at 8 % per annum to 120 M by 2012. There will be 20 M broad band cable subscribers by 2010.   Conditional Access System (CAS) service has been...

I agree that cable operators are likely buyout targets. Cable will increasingly need to have a virtual national presence to compete with quad-play services. That is, those services that include video, voice, and data (at home) plus wireless mobile services (which would include video, voice and data while mobile or traveling).