Cable theft increases

By Francisco Espinosa Bellido

By early 2015 from every two Peruvian TV cable users one will be informal, according to a report published by newspaper El Comercio. In the last 10 years TV cable piracy has increased in Peru a whopping 4112%, while in comparison formal paid TV grew only 171%.

At the end of the first quarter of 2014 the four main legal cable operators had a total of 1.3 million customers, an outlook not entirely encouraging taking into account a national survey of paid TV penetration which indicated that at the end of 2013 more than 3 million customers had formal and informal TV cable connections.

Specialists emphasized the fact that from every three new piracy users one of them comes from a legal operator, attracted by lower costs, a market behavior that deeply discourages the entry of new operators on the country.

Nevertheless price is not the only reason for the increasing piracy: the regions with more than 70% of TV cable informality aren´t those with high poverty ratings but with small population density, a factor that keeps away operators from providing services there.