research_1 28/02/2014 14:42 Page 2
RESEARCH ROUND-UP
Liberty Global extends
European dominance
Pay-TV subscriptions for the 102 operators across 26 countries covered in a
report from Digital TV Research will
increase from a collective 105.8m in
2008 to 131.9m in 2012 and onto 147.1m
by 2018. The European Pay TV
Operator Forecasts report estimates
that these operators represented 85% of
European pay TV subscribers by end2012.
Liberty Global/UPC extended its lead as
Europe’s largest pay TV operation with the
acquisition of the UK’s Virgin Media. The
group had twice as many subscribers as sec-
Gateway STBs bright
spot in tough market
DirecTV’s Genie, Liberty Global’s
Horizon, Dish’s Hopper and the boxes
that power Comcast’s X1 service have
something in common other than better
marketing names than an older generation of boxes.
These feature-rich boxes bring more tuners to
centralise DVR resources as well as better processing power, according to ABI Research. This
horsepower improves responsiveness and user
interface, and will also act as a ‘Trojan Horse’
as operators look to extend home automation
and energy management services into homes.
According to ABI’s findings, in 2013, North
American and Western European operators
shipped 4.5m units in a market which is
conservatively estimated to grow 84% to 8.5m
by 2018.
Practice director Sam Rosen commented:
“Operators have made decisions to move to
gateway boxes for economic reasons, but more
and more they are leveraging the power of
those boxes to improve the quality and
consistency of the experience they offer to consumers. Advertising campaigns highlighting
unique features will supplement price and bundle oriented campaigns and target higher-end
customers. US satellite operator Dish
Networks, for example, will highlight the
uniqueness of its 'watch anywhere' model,
which is less subject to rights agreements than
other operators.”
Cisco market leader
Data from Synergy Research Group
shows that Cisco has maintained its
14 Cable Media
ond-placed BSkyB at end-2012. However,
Liberty Global’s subscriber count is not expected to grow by too much. The company has to
deal with the conversion of 13.9m analogue
cable subs in 2008 to virtually none by 2018.
Russia’s Tricolor will become the second
largest operator by 2018, with 15.7m subscribers. The low-cost DTH player also has
many 'subscribers', which do not pay to receive
the service and have therefore not been included in this report.
However, not all of these operators will
increase their subscriber bases, with 37 (36%)
expected to decline between 2012 and 2018.
Traditional pay TV operators now face greater
rivalry than ever before – either from other
pay TV platforms such as IPTV or satellite or
from 'free' multichannel TV services such as
DTT and online TV and video.
Total subscription and VOD revenues for
the 102 operators increased from $26.8 billion
in 2008 to $34.5 billion in 2012. However, the
total will only grow to $35.1 billion by 2018.
These operators account for nearly 90% of
European pay TV revenues.
Subscription and VOD revenues will fall for
45 of the 102 operators (44%) covered in this
report between 2012 and 2018, including eight
of the top ten operators.
BSkyB will remain at the top earner,
recording $6.5 billion subscription and VOD
revenues by 2018. Liberty Global closed the
gap on BSkyB considerably with the acquisition of Virgin Media.
Top five European pay TV operators by subscribers (000)
2012
Liberty
Global
Germany
(Unity KBW)
Belgium
(Telenet),
Netherlands,
Austria,
Switzerland,
Poland,
Romania,
Ireland,
Slovakia,
Czech,
Hungary,
UK (Virgin)
UK & Ireland
Russia
Germany
BSkyB
Tricolor
Kabel
Deutschland
Rostelecom Russia
20,968
10,333
9,200
8,141
6,600
2018
Liberty
Global
Germany
(Unity KBW),
Belgium
(Telenet),
Netherlands,
Austria,
Switzerland,
Poland,
Romania,
Ireland,
Slovakia,
Czech,
Hungary,
UK (Virgin)
Tricolor
Russia
BSkyB
UK & Ireland
Kabel
Germany
Deutschland
Rostelecom Russia
21,250
15,745
10,836
8,159
7,128
Source: Digital TV Research
leadership in four of the five main video
infrastructure market segments,
though in video client hardware and
software (which includes set-top boxes,
residential gateways and associa Y