Report: African Operators Lead Regional Pay-TV Spike

LONDON: Pan-African pay-TV platforms are set to surge, according to a new report from Digital TV Research.

The Eastern Europe Middle East & Africa Pay TV Operator Forecasts report reveals that pay DTT platform GOtv will gain 5.84 million subs between 2014 and 2020 to reach 7.50 million, which is more than quadruple its 2014 total. Rival StarTimes will experience similar growth, to climb by 4.39 million. GOtv’s sister operator and satellite TV platform DStv will gain 4.32 million subs and satellite TV platform Canal Plus 1.34 million.

The Pan-Arab satellite TV services will also add subscribers, with beIN Sports up by 768,000 and OSN by 630,000. Other notable strides will take place in Russia, with Tricolor up by 2,473,000, Orion by 910,000 and Rostelcom by 873,000. Liberty Global will add 869,000 subs in Central and Eastern Europe.

Pay-TV subscriptions for the 112 operators across 33 territories covered in the report will nearly double from a collective 56.5 million in 2010 to 102.1 million by 2020. Covering 182 platforms, these operators represent more than 90 percent of the region’s pay-TV subs.

Total subscription and VOD revenues for the 112 operators will nearly double between 2010 and 2020 to almost $15 billion. DStv will remain the wealthiest operator over the forecast period, followed by Liberty Global. However, Russia’s Tricolor, the largest pay-TV operator by subscribers, does not even make it into the top 10 operators by revenues.