Eastern Europe to See Spike in Digital Pay-TV Revenues

LONDON: Pay-TV revenues in Eastern Europe are forecast to be 45 percent higher in 2020 ($7.27 billion) than in 2010, according to Digital TV Research.

Digital pay-TV revenues will increase by $4 billion between 2010 and 2020 to $7 billion. They will increase by 47 percent between 2014 and 2020. Digital cable revenues will more than double between 2014 and 2020, with IPTV up by 56 percent and pay DTT up by 53 percent. However, satellite TV revenues (the main earner) will only grow by 17 percent over the same period.

The number of digital pay-TV subs will increase from 25.8 million (20.7 percent of TV households) in 2010 to 51 million (40 percent) in 2014 and onto 76.7 million (59.4 percent) by 2020. Total cable subs will fall by 8.9 million between 2010 and 2020. Digital cable subs will grow from 4.6 million to 27.6 million, but analog subs will fall from 36.8 million to 4.9 million over the same period. Overall, cable penetration will reach a quarter of TV households by 2020, down from a third in 2010. Cable TV revenues will hardly grow between 2014 and 2020, despite more homes taking the more expensive digital packages. Digital cable TV revenues will more than double to $2.7 billion, with analog cable TV falling from $1.5 billion to $300,000 million.

Pay TV will be taken by 63.2 percent of the region’s TV homes in 2020, up from 50.1 percent at end-2010, but only up from 60.9 percent at end-2014.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Pay-TV analysis in Eastern Europe has long been distorted by the legacy of analog cable. Many homes traditionally received a limited number of channels for a very small fee over analog networks. These subscribers are rapidly converting—mostly to digital cable but also to IPTV, satellite TV and DTT.”