Cable television
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Romania has a high penetration rates for cable television in Europe, with over 79% of all households watching television through a CATV network in 2007. The market is extremely dynamic, and dominated by two giant companies – Romanian-based RCS&RDS (DIGI) and U.K.-based (Vodafone). Both offer internet broadband, fixed (VOIP) and mobile telephony. The national CATV network is being improved, and most households are being migrated towards digital cable solutions.
The reasons for this appeal started in the early 1990s. After the fall of the communist regime, in 1989, there was only one state-owned TVR 1, a second channel, TVR 2 being reopen in February 1990. Nationwide private TV channels were slow to appear, because of lack of experience and high start-up costs (most startups were radio stations or newspapers). Thus, for the first three years, over the air, one would get one or two state channels and one or two local, amateurish private channels, broadcasting only a few hours a day. Atlantic Television, headed by Robin Edwards and Peter Thomas, which included US broadcaster Capital Cities/ABC and Canadian broadcaster CanWest International, partnered with TVR, the state broadcaster, to form Canalul 2 Television using TVR's existing terrestrial transmission capability overing 30% of the country and feeding urban cable systems. Following a move whereby CanWest became the main shareholder and caused upset with TVR, the arrangements fell to pieces, to the consternation of Romanian reformers many of whom believed that Canwest's incompetence set Romanian civil society back ten years. Edwards and Atlantic later sued CanWest International in Barbados and won the case and CanWest's subsequent appeal, before suing CanWest Global in Canada where CanWest settled out of court. Both Edwards and Thomas worked successfully at high level in the country for many years, Edwards in a political capacity whilst founding the 100,000 weekly circulation Business Digest, Thomas in agriculture. After this many cable[4] companies appeared and thrived, providing 15–20 foreign channels, taken freely from the satellite, for a very low price (at the time US$2 or less), offering high-quality news, entertainment and especially movies or cartoons (one of the ways cable companies advertised was the availability of a cartoon channel, Cartoon Network, appealing to children, which in turn would appeal to their parents). Channels which was broadcast in 1990s are: general channels from France, Germany, Italy, Eurosport (start in Romanian in 1997), Duna, DSF, VIVA, VIVA Zwei, MTV, MCM, CMT Europe, Cartoon Network, TNT, Discovery Channel (subtitles in Romanian since 1997), TLC, Animal Planet (subtitles in Romanian), Sky News, Sky One, FilmNet, TV1000, NBC Europe, Fox Kids (in Romanian). The first two companies to provide CATV were Multicanal in Bucharest and Timiş Cablu in Timișoara, both out of business today. Many small, startup firms gradually grew, and coverage increased (coverage wars were frequent in the early period, with many cable boxes smashed, and new cable networks offering "half off for twice the channels" and immediately wiring the building for any willing persons).
However, this period soon ended, with consolidation around 1995–96. Some large companies emerged: Kappa and RCS in Bucharest, Astral in Cluj, UPC in Timișoara, TourImex in Râmnicu Vâlcea. This consolidation came with gentlemen's agreements over areas of control and pricing, with claims of monopoly abounding. This process of consolidation was completed around 2005–06, when only two big suppliers of cable remained: UPC and RCS&RDS (DIGI). Internet over coaxial cable has been available since around 2000, and IP telephony (over the CATV infrastructure) since the deregulation of the market in 2003. As of 2016, cable TV is available in most of the country, including most rural areas (where nearly 50% of the population live). Satellite digital TV appeared in 2004, providing coverage for the rest of the country, with both RCS&RDS and UPC having a stake in these companies. However, beside RCS&RDS and UPC, there are many other smaller CATV providers in Romania, operating locally or regionally. In early 2010s most of them began providing Internet access, to make their offers more attractive and increase their appeal to their customers already subscribed to CATV service. Also many of them began providing digital cable television, although analogue cable TV is their basic offer.
Cable TV is very cheap for all standards, the standard or basic service, offering about 100–140 channels, is around 24–39 RON/month including VAT (about €5–€9), depending by the provider as DIGI offer almost all channels in one pack at 28 RON. Premium HBO and Cinemax cost no more than 14–20 RON/month (around €3–€4). Cable television is also attractive because today, all CATV operators in Romania are also providing Internet access at various speeds (ranging from 50 MBPS to 1000 MBPS – depending on the provider and region), in many cases subscribers are contracting an Internet and TV package, at a fairly low price (as low as 60–70 lei/month). Internet access is, in many cases, granted by cable TV operators, as it was cheaper to implement it over the existent CATV networks in some cases. As of 2018, more than half of households in Romania is subscribed to cable television.
