MANILA, Philippines – Overseas Filipinos are spending less on pay TV services in view of the global economic slump, but not at a rate that should worry The Filipino Channel (TFC) content provider ABS-CBN International.

“The global churn rate has gone up a bit but it has not been significant,” said Eugenio Lopez III, chairman of parent company ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.

Churn rate is a measure of customer or employee attrition for a given business, and is defined as the number of customers who discontinue subscription to a certain service.

The increase in the churn rate, Lopez said, was fortunately being offset by new sales so far.

“The global numbers are actually very good for the first half of the year and we hope that even though churn rate is going up, sales will also continue going up,” Lopez said.

“There is a move from satellite or DTH [direct-to-home TV service] to cable. With cable you can buy TFC at $9 per month but with satellite you get all our channels for $25. So there’s a move down a little bit. Filipinos are downgrading but new sales are going up,” Lopez said.

As to geographical source, he said subscribers in the US would likely be affected most. The US is the epicenter of the worst credit crunch since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“The churn rate has gone up a little but not enough to make us worried,” Lopez stressed.

About 60 percent of ABS-CBN’s revenue comes from airtime or advertising sales and the remaining 40 percent from direct sales of subscriptions in cable, satellite and the Internet, and from movie box-office receipts, mobile phone services, magazines, home video, DVDs and music CDs. Direct sales rose by P510 million or 9 percent to P6.3 billion in 2008.

ABS-CBN International launched its core product, TFC, in 1994 which is distributed by major cable operators as well as satellite operators. With content coming from both Manila and the United States, TFC provides news and entertainment programs that seek to help second-generation and third-generation Filipino-Americans feel closer to their culture.

“Through The Filipino Channel, ABS-CBN Global reaches 2 million Filipinos overseas. Beyond bringing them the best of our programming, we also offered services that enable them to call or send money and goods home,” ABS-CBN president Ma. Rosario Santos-Concio said in a recent report to stockholders.

“Through our partnership with Multiply, the US online social networking site, our Kapamilya can even share experiences and memories by blogging or by posting their photo albums on the Internet,” she said.