Report: Global TV Revenue Rose 6.7 Percent Last Year

LONDON: Global television revenues grew by 6.7 percent in 2011, reaching £258 billion ($417.2 billion), with subscription revenues increasing for the fourth year in a row to £133 billion ($215 billion), according to Ofcom’s International Communications Market Report 2012.

In the U.K., TV revenue was £11.3 billion ($18.2 billion), a gain of 2.7 percent from the prior year. The U.S. had TV revenues of £100 billion ($161.7 billion), up 6.5 percent year on year. Russia, China and India had the biggest gains: Russia’s TV revenues grew 16.6 percent to £3.6 billion ($5.8 billion), China’s by 14.4 percent to £12.4 billion ($20 billion) and India’s by 14.2 percent to £5.5 billion ($8.9 billion). 

For the fourth year in a row, global subscription revenues were up, from £95 billion ($153.6 billion) in 2007 to £133 billion ($215 billion) in 2011, a compound annual growth rate of 9 percent. Last year the income generated from subscription fees represented 52 percent of the total global TV revenue. In 2010 it was at 50 percent and in 2007 it was just 45 percent.

Net ad revenues increased 3.5 percent to £105 billion ($169.8 billion) year on year. Advertising’s proportion of global TV revenue has decline though in recent years, from 46 percent in 2007 to 41 percent in 2011.

The report also found that the U.S. has the highest proportion of TV homes with HD, at 49 percent. The U.K. is at 41 percent, Japan is at 31 percent and Germany is at 28 percent. People in the U.K. and France have the highest ownership of connected TVs among the countries included in the research. In both countries, 15 percent of respondents claimed to have an Internet-connected television. Consumers in the U.K. are found to be the most likely to access TV content over the Internet, with nearly a quarter of the country’s Internet users claiming to do so every week. The U.K. also has a high proportion of consumers who own a digital video recording (DVR) device, at 39 percent. Of the nine countries surveyed, the U.K. leads DVR ownership, followed by the U.S. at 32 percent, Australia at 29 percent and China at 27 percent.