Belgian IPTV operator Belgacom has added 300 titles from the Mubi online movie service, with a further 200 to come May. Mubi is an online video portal that offers independent, foreign and classic films. The move highlights Belgacom’s continued efforts to offer premium content to gain market share at the expense of the country’s dominant cable operators. Belgacom has already shown that a strong, incumbent telco can make serious inroads with IPTV in a country with cable operators that had completely saturated the market. Remarkably, almost 100 percent of the country’s 4.3 million households subscribe to a pay-TV service, and Belgacom has about 22 percent of that, with almost 950,000 subscribers by the end of 2010. The success was founded partly on Belgacom gaining the rights to the Belgian football championship (Jupiler Pro League) in 2005 and 2008.
