New Report Shows Health of Euro Pay-TV Sector

CANNES: A new report from the European Audiovisual Observatory has found that Europe’s top pay-TV platforms continue to see gains despite the region’s economic troubles, outpacing revenue growth at the leading ad-funded broadcasters.

The report explores the financials of Europe’s top 20 commercial entities—11 pay-TV platforms and nine ad-supported broadcasters. The top pay-TV platforms delivered revenue growth of 3.7 percent to 33.9 billion euros, while the ad-funded broadcasters saw revenues fall 1 percent to 20.8 billion euros.

By revenues, Sky tops the list at 8.5 billion euros in 2012, a 5.4 percent gain, followed by Liberty Global at 7.8 billion euros, a 6.3 percent gain, and RTL Group, where revenues were up 4 percent to 5.8 billion euros. Rounding out the top ten are Canal+, Mediaset, Virgin Media, Sky Italia, ProSiebenSat.1, ITV plc and TF1.
 
"European households have not only generally maintained their subscriptions, but have also demonstrated interest for new services (a ‘Go’ formula providing access everywhere on any device; transactional VoD services)," the report notes. "The pay TV market continues to strengthen."