Advertising and other lines of business

Sogecable Media S.A. was created in October 2005 in order to handle the marketing publicity of the audiovisual supports of Cuatro, Canal+ and the company's other thematic channels, as well as the Digital+ Magazine. 

The economic prosperity our country had undergone during the first few years of the new millennium was suddenly shattered in 2008. As was to be expected, advertising has not been spared from this new situation and, for the first time in many years, the investment volume saw itself reduced to the levels of 2006.

Television is still the key means of communications by excellence with 43.4% of the total balance of the investments. However - and just like all the other means of communication, except for the Internet - it has also undergone the current economic situation's punishment.

Sogecable Media is the leader of the market, commercialising 18 thematic channels with publicity on the Digital+ platform. Moreover, it offers the unbeatable competitive advantage of its being able to present itself as a unique negotiator when planning on its different supports within a much atomised sector with countless channels. You may find from the star channel of the pay TV in our country, Canal+, to the ones specialised in travelling and sports in its offer. This group of channels gives Sogecable Media a very strong and variable segmentation power, which is more and more requested by the advertisers.

In addition to the latter, and in order to offer the subscribers and advertisers all the advantages that our new technologies offer, Canal+ has been the first television to broadcast in High Definition. With this technology's development, for the first time ever, the viewers will be able to watch their favourite programmes and the publicity like never before.

Magazines are an exceptional advertising support in terms of affinity. Reaching out to the most complicated commercial public has historically been the main advantage of this means of communication. The Digital+ Magazine also includes an added advantage reserved for very few printed editions: its great coverage capable of reaching out to more than 3,200,000 readers, a figure that makes it the country's first monthly magazine and the second one in the totality of the magazines.

Its elevated number of exclusive readers, as well as the number of times people consult each edition make the Digital+ Magazine an irrefutable reference in the Spanish editorial sector and a unique support for the planning in the printed means of communications.

No doubt, 2008 was a very special year for television, and once again, Cuatro played an important role in this history's page of the small screen, with the broadcast of the Euro Cup, which awarded Cuatro with unanimous acknowledgements for its way of broadcasting this competition and for living it on the street. Zona Cuatro, right in the middle of the downtown area of Madrid, became the meeting point for thousands of fans under the name of "Red Tide" and for great brands that bet on the set up of the enormous facilities. The Korean car brand, Kia, was the official sponsor, whereas Cruzcampo, Burger King and Iberdrola acted as official partners. The experience definitely confirmed Sogecable Media also in its facet as an organiser of mass events.

Cesc's historical goal against Italy in the final's fourths brought more than 16 million viewers together, thus becoming the most viewed moment of all times on television. Likewise, such figures made the spots that were broadcast immediately afterwards form part of television's history crushing any previous record and setting a difficult to exceed standard.

But 2008 was not only the Euro Cup year for Cuatro. The new formats - with the coach programmes heading the list - the news, the contests, the realities, the national and international series, the movies or the entertainment programmes were decisive factors when giving the channel's share the best figure since its birth: 8.6%, 12% more than just the year before.

Different studies, such as the ones carried out by Millward Brown and GECA, have once again ascertained that Cuatro has represented a real revolution in the TV setting of our country and that, better than anybody, it has known how to lead the Paneuropean movement of the "new generation of televisions". This generation's Spanish version has taken over concepts such as the creativity, inventiveness, design and the vanguard. The latter are also values that Sogecable Media has launched to the advertising market, offering a different and innovative product, capable of enriching no matter which means of communications' planning, however demanding the latter may be.

Since its birth, one of Sogecable Media's great tricks has been that of betting on the segmentation in this means of communication. Nowadays, Cuatro is the only channel capable of making great coverage and, likewise, offering the advertiser only the target the latter is interested in reaching out to. Like this, Sogecable Media has attained one of its most powerful tools out of the segmentation and currently, it can already offer more than 80 different types of targets. The important commercial management the latter involves does not represent any setback when the goal is fully attained, and this is no other than that of granting the advertiser an enormous advantage: addressing and reaching out to whom he really wants to impact on, thus making all of his impacts useful and, therefore, optimising his advertising investment.

Within this enormous variety of targets, the most outstanding one is the one called the social target, that group of people from between 16 and 54 years of age, who belong to the middle or high classes and live in population areas of more than 10,000 inhabitants. Otherwise said, the population segment with the highest acquisition level, and likewise, the most difficult one to make an impact on with publicity.

Searching for innovation, notoriety and exclusivity

Great part of Cuatro's success is also thanks to the immense support it has received from the advertising market. In order to attain the latter, the channel has not hesitated in implementing a new way of understanding the advertising world: where it is and the programming itself combine, integrating themselves.

Proof of the latter are the countless bumpers, morphing, banners, agendas, next coming, pathfinders, internal presentations or tele-promotions - and that is mentioning only some of the many examples - that have been carried out up to the present day.

Full of creativity and innovation, these facets carried out by the Department of Special Actions of Sogecable Media ensure the advertiser a high degree of notoriety and a relevant brand reminder. On its behalf, these attributes have led Cuatro to be considered as the channel that innovates the most in advertising, according to the study that Millward Brown made in 2008 with regard to the Special Publicity.

Betting on technology and the new businesses that derive from the latter, is one of Sogecable Media's greatest means of growth.

In 2009, the mobile terminals' technological advance consolidated the market of contents and services. This offer of products was in high demand both in the audiovisual contents - news, sports, series, etc. - as well as in the download of original music from the main record companies, games, backgrounds, logos or screen savers.

Another of the great consolidated business lines is the acquisition of movies and matches with payment by means of an SMS and the creation of new services based on the development of social networks with subscription models. You may access many of these contents by means of the Mobile Internet or with Digital+Móvil's offer - whose number of subscribers continues to grow -, which are offered by Movistar, Vodafone and Orange or on the operators' own web pages. A large number may be obtained directly by means of SMS Premium on Digital+ and Cuatro.

The latter, along with the value added telephones (Audiotex), is still undergoing relevant increases with regard to previous years, growths that are mainly due to the extension of the offer that was presented by means of the interactive reference brand on Cuatro INBOX, "look, listen, participate", which was born in December of 2006. The brand also offers new communication possibilities that have not gone unnoticed by the main advertisers of Sogecable Media, who have wanted to interact by means of the latter with the television viewers, offering them their best products and asking them about their tastes and opinions. Sogecable Media has developed different multimedia projects and solutions for all of these: today, brands and share are closer together than ever before.

This profile of such an enthusiastic viewer has allowed to develop an ample offer of Call TV, contest programmes on air that allow the viewers to participate and then distributing prizes in cash among the latter. These formats have not only been limited to their usual night schedule, but they have also interrupted Cuatro's morning time slots with a relevant impact.

And last, Sogecable Media has been one of the first companies in developing mobile web Cuatro.mobi with the  best audiovisual contents and information of the channel, which is growing more and more and which has counted on first level advertisers from its very beginning. Cuatro's 360º offer becomes more of a reality thanks to this support.

The tele-sales services on the general channels keep on undergoing moderate increases, whereas the business presents a more relevant growth in the more segmented means of communications. This is why Digital+ broadened these services in 2007 by releasing a 24 hours sales' channel with Canal Club. Following the trend, the commercial commitments with European Home System (EHS) have been improved, and will continue to provide an ample catalogue of products to the Digital+ subscribers.

Sogecable has turned its presence on the Internet into a first order commercial element for its pay TV business, since an important part of its new clients - about 12.5% in 2008 - subscribe through the Network. But moreover, it has used this new technology's potential, not only as a window for advertising its offers and products, but also as a key tool in the communications' and transparency policies before its subscribers and viewers.

Prisacom, a Grupo Prisa company dedicated to the internet services' activities, with ample experience in the business management on the Network and an important technological infrastructure, is in charge of the development and management of all the Group's web pages.

The corporative web page -www.sogecable.com- counts on versions in Spanish and English and contains an abundant amount of documentation related to the Sogecable Group and the companies its consists of (activities, chronology and economical data). The Group's different business areas - pay TV, thematic channels' production and movies' production and distribution, new businesses, etc. are thoroughly pointed out.

In addition to this page, Sogecable is also present on the network with the web page http://www.plus.es/ - the great Internet window for the Digital+ subscriber -, on Cuatro, its open TV channel's web page  (www.cuatro.com), the production company's and its movie distributor's one (http://www.sogecine-sogepaq.com/), and on the webs of the thematic channels Viajar (Travelling) (http://www.canalviajar.com/), Caza y Pesca (Hunting and Fishing) (http://www.canalcazaypesca.com/), CNN+ (www.plus.es/cnn+) and 40 TV (http://www.40tv.es/). Sogecable Media likewise also has its own web page (www.sogecablemedia.com).