Chunghwa Telecom Co has seen a sharp rise in the number of subscribers to its digital TV service since Sunday, when Taiwan won its first medal at the London Olympics, the telecoms operator said.
On Monday and Tuesday, it received 2,800 to 2,900 applications per day for subscription to its multimedia-on-demand (MOD) service, said Chunghwa Telecom, an authorized broadcaster of the Olympics Games.
The daily average is about 2,000 applications, said Chang Yi-fong (張義豐), vice president of the company’s northern business group.
The spike came after Hsu Shu-ching (許淑淨) won a silver medal in the women’s 53kg weightlifting event with a combined lift of 219kg, securing the nation’s first medal at the London Games, Chang said.
Last month, there were 40,000 applications for the high-definition media-on-demand service, more than 1.6 times the monthly average, Chang said.
He attributed the increase to Chunghwa Telecom providing a “comprehensive” service, broadcasting all the sports events that are of interest to the local audience.
“As long as the competition is broadcast by the organizers, subscribers to our services would be able to watch and enjoy,” he said.
The number of subscribers to the media-on-demand service, which was launched in 2005, exceeded 1 million last year, with an average revenue of NT$157 (US$5.37) per user, said the company, the nation’s biggest telecoms carrier.
As of Wednesday, the number of subscribers had topped 1.15 million and was “still growing gradually,” Chang said.
The company has forecast a rise to 1.5 million subscribers by the end of this year, partly because of increased demand for Olympics Games broadcasts.
In Taiwan, only Chunghwa Telecom and Elta TV have obtained the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games via new media platforms such as mobile phones and Internet Protocol Television, which is digital content delivered through a high-speed Internet connection.
Elta TV, which is carried on Chunghwa Telecom’s MOD system, has been broadcasting the Games on 11 approved channels.
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