Global Pay-TV Subs Up, Revenues Down

Digital TV Research is forecasting 60 million additional pay-TV subscribers to be added between 2018 and 2024, taking the global total to 1.08 billion.

China is expected to provide 19 million additional subs and India 26 million. The U.S., however, is poised to lose 14.4 million pay-TV subscribers between 2018 and 2024, down by 16 percent. China will continue to supply a third of the world’s pay-TV subscribers, with 356 million expected by end-2024. India will bring in another 17 percent of the total by 2024, or 184 million. Together, China and India will provide half the world’s pay-TV subscribers by 2024.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “We have updated our forecasts based on June 2019 reports. The U.S. is the world’s worst performer—with no uplift expected over the next five years. Other countries will experience a slowdown—or even some small declines in subscriber numbers—but no other country will match the gloomy projections for the U.S.”

Global pay-TV revenues—subscription fees and PPV movies and TV episodes—is believed to have peaked in 2016 at $205 billion. Revenues are expected to fall by 17 percent to $171 billion in 2024. This is lower than in 2010, despite the number of pay-TV subscribers expected to rise by 359 million between 2010 and 2024. U.S. pay-TV revenues peaked in 2015, at $106 billion, but the total will drop to $70 billion in 2024.