France Telecom's Orange reached 2.166mn subscribers for its pay-TV services in France by the end of the first quarter of this year, up 69% from March 2008, with 316,000 subscribers to its satellite TV service and (by implication, though not stated) 1.85mn subscribers to its IPTV service.

The telco had gained 363,000 subscribers for its premium Orange TV package, comprising sports channels and Orange Cinema Series, which have recently attracted censure and suspension from the French courts due to their exclusive content, garnering accusations of anti-competitive practice from rival telcos including SFR.  The number of video-on-demand downloads by Orange France customers reached 7.7mn for the first quarter of this year, nearly quadruple the 2mn clocked in the same period of 2008.

Globally the company had gained 2.5mn pay-TV subscribers by the end of March 2009, up 75% year-on-year, with its nascent Spanish IPTV platform reaching 99,000 customers and its Polish operations quadrupling their pay-TV subscriber base (satellite and IPTV) to reach 198,000 customers.

Revenues across all operations reached EUR 12.685bn for the first quarter of this year, up 0.4% year-on-year, while EBITDA fell 4.4% to reach EUR 4.3bn, with France Telecom attributing the fall mainly to increased content purchases following the launch of Orange TV channels in France in the second half of 2008.