For the third quarter ended Oct 31, 2014 (Q3), net profit fell 9% year-on-year to RM113.3 million and for the nine months ended Oct 31, 2014, net profit improved 13% year-on-year to RM379.4 million, which represents 67% of Maybank IB's full-year estimate.

"The shortfall was due to higher-than-expected overheads. Peculiarly, the number of Pay-TV subscribers actually eased 5,000 quarter-on-quarter and the number of high-yielding Super Pack subscribers eased 1,000 quarter-on-quarter due to weak consumer sentiment.

"If memory serves us correctly, this is the first time in history that the number of Pay-TV and Super Pack subscribers declined quarter-on-quarter. While Astro intends to extract more from high net worth subscribers, the statistics above suggest to us that it may not succeed," it said.

Based on Q3 results, Maybank IB assumes lower net Pay-TV additions, lower take-up of HD and Super Pack products, lower average revenue per user (ARPU) in the financial year but higher ARPU in the next two financial years due to the HD price hike and 2ppts lower earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) margins due to higher overheads.

The research house trimmed its earnings estimates by 10%, 4% and 10% for the current and next two financial years respectively. It also reduced its target price by 3% to RM3.20 from RM3.30 but maintained its hold call on the stock.
MIDF Research has also reduced its FY15 and FY16 earnings estimates by 4.2% and 3.7% respectively based on the lower-than-expected earnings.

"We assumed slower net adds growth primarily in the Pay-TV households segment in view of the weak consumer sentiments. Also, we trimmed our Ebitda margin assumption. In addition, our dividend payout forecasts for FY15 and FY16 were also reduced by 10% and 20% to 9 sen and 10 sen respectively," it said in a report last Friday.

MIDF maintained its neutral call on the stock, with a revised target price of RM3.60 from RM3.75 previously.

"We are concerned with the slower net adds from the Pay-TV segments. Despite strong growth from the NJOI segments, the NJOI households only made up less than 20% of Astro's subscriber base. This could signal a slower growth momentum in Astro's subscriber base in the foreseeable term," it added.

Affin Hwang Investment Bank Bhd expects the market environment to be more challenging for Astro going forward, due to the lower Pay-TV net adds and higher costs thus cutting its FY15-17E core earnings per share (EPS) forecasts by 5% to 9%.

I agree. Im also thinking of cutting my astro next year if things starting to get tough but the only thing i will miss are the live BPL matches in HD. The rest i can get it online.

Malaysian government has intended to launch an English news channel to broadcast news about Malaysia to the world. However, the ministry has indicated that they have no plans to launch an English news channel in Malaysia.

“If we want to bring Malaysia to the world, there it should be in a language which people can easily understand us — which is English,” said Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Minister of Communication and Multimedia. ”However, there is no plans to have an all English news channel in English in the country,” he added.

The Communication and Multimedia ministry has announced its plans to establish a 24/7 Bahasa Malaysia news channel through Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) after the completion of digitisation.

looks like your dream come true    

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But is it essential for measat 3B to be operational then only they can launch Fox Sports 2 & 3 in HD? They have no difficulty having 5-6 extra HD channels during events like World Cup & Olympics.

Note: Oh!K schedule is "delayed" by 5min while Channel  M HD is +1hour ahead of regional one.

More money+space for capitalism ads...

NHK World Premium generally doesn't carry any English subtitles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHK_World_Premium

NHK World HD (the one on HyppTV) is catered to overseas audiences and provide English subtitles/audio for all the shows.

What about current Korea channels? All moved? Adoi. Wifey will ask me for this. Extra rm10 then..haaiihh

i really hope that they include in SP1 and SP4..
but probably  not..
maybe SPP1 and SPP4...

Brah, just ask your wife pay you rm10 every month can already. Hahahaha.

Da fuug. Please take away golf channels. Dang. Golf is old men hobby. Hahahaha.

Well, someone eventually will take the bait...

Another SD tier channel (although there's also HD version of it).

well, maybe hypp tv is open their channel for "sharing content"
and look what we have to pay for? now trending that every year have price revised... 
bukan ke hypp tv ada astro channel jugak?
mcm awani, oasis, Supersport dgn Vaannavil?

you can stream la liga and other major liga elsewhere...you just need 2 be smart 2 find one

fuk the overrated english premier league

i had stopped watching the league since SIR ALEX retired 4 good and MU won the 20th league trophy