Europe’s Top Pay-TV Operators Face Potential Revenue Loss

LONDON: A new report from Digital TV Research forecasts a dip in subscriber numbers and revenues for the top half of Europe's leading pay-TV operators.

The European Pay TV Operator Forecasts covers 103 operators in 26 countries that represent 84 percent of subscribers. The findings point to subscriber numbers falling for 40 of these operators between 2013 and 2020, due to greater competition (including online TV and video) and analog cable subs defecting to digital platforms.

Total subscription and VOD revenues for the 103 operators increased from $33.7 billion in 2010 to $35.8 billion in 2013. However, the total will only grow to $36.2 billion by 2020. These operators accounted for 91 percent of European pay-TV revenues in 2013. Subscription and VOD revenues will fall for 50 of the 103 operators (49 percent) between 2013 and 2020, including six of the top ten operators. These revenues are for subscriptions and VOD only, and do not include other revenues such as broadband, telephone, advertising, equipment sales and rental.

BSkyB will remain on top, recording $6.44 billion subscription and VOD revenues by 2020. Liberty Global closed the gap on BSkyB considerably with the acquisition of Virgin Media. However, these two companies will be among those experiencing the highest revenue losses. France’s CanalSat will lose the most ($355 million) between 2013 and 2020. Those expected to gain the most are Sky Deutschland, Kabel Deutschland and Sky Italia. Revenues will more than double for Telecom Italia, Bulgaria’s Vivacom, Greece’s OTE and Hungary’s MinDig.