anga_anga 10/05/2014 13:02 Page 1
EUROMEDIA
2014
Digital cable
subs set to soar
aying IPTV subscribers will overtake pay satellite
TV ones in 2018, according to a new report from
Digital TV Research. The
Digital TV Western
Europe report forecasts
P
Despite a return to more
positive market conditions,
pay-TV subscriptions will only
increase by 8.7m (6.6%)
between 2013 and 2020 to
103.65m. However, the number
of digital pay-TV subscribers
will increase by 28.1% (nearly
that IPTV subscriptions
will climb by 7.5m (38%)
between 2013 and 2020
compared with 1.2m additions for both pay satellite
TV (up by 5%) and pay
DTT (up 22%). Digital
cable will increase by
nearly 13m (up 42%).
23m), with analogue cable subs
falling from 14.03m to zero by
2019.
Western Europe will reach
159m digital TV households by
end-2014, up by four million
during the year and by 33m
since 2010. This total will grow
to 174m by 2020. Free-to-air
DTT will remain the most popular platform – with 44m primary homes by 2020. FTA
satellite TV will supply a further 27m.
Despite the number of pay
TV homes increasing, pay-TV
revenues will remain flat at
around $33 billion. Satellite TV
will remain the most lucrative
pay-TV platform, but its revenues will fall every year from
2011 – despite subs numbers
rising. Cable TV revenues
peaked in 2012, but will lose
$1.3 billion (€0.93m/10.2%)
between 2013 and 2020 –
although subscriber numbers
will also fall (by 2.6%). Digital
cable TV revenues will peak in
2017. IPTV revenues will climb
by 26.3% between 2013 and
2020 to $4.91 billion (with
subscriber numbers up by
38.4%).
The UK ($7.535 billion) will
still be the most lucrative payTV market by 2020. Despite
having the most pay TV subscribers by some distance,
Germany’s pay-TV revenues
will be a lot lower than the UK
– at $4.741 billion. In fact, Italy
($4.539 billion) will not be too
far behind Germany despite
having fewer than half its payTV subscribers.