Global pay TV revenues reached US$155 billion in 2010

About 338 million digital homes were added around the world between 2006 and 2010, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. The Digital TV World Databook estimated that this took the digital TV household total for the 73 countries covered to 576 million. Digital penetration climbed from 18.9% at end-2006 to 42.5% by end-2010.

Report author Simon Murray said: “There were still 780 million analog TV households (both terrestrial and cable, with a few analog DTH ones) by end-2010. However, this was down from 1,023 million at end-2006.”

Split by platform, there were still 486 million analog terrestrial homes, 290 million analog cable ones and 3 million analog DTH at end-2010. However, digital cable was in 203 million homes, followed by 139 million pay digital DTH and 97 million free-to-air digital DTH. Pay IPTV brought in another 35 million households. Meanwhile, FTA (free-to-air) DTT homes reached 94 million, with pay DTT generating a further 9 million.

Murray said: “Of the digital homes added between 2006 and 2010, 70 million came from primary DTT [homes taking DTT but not subscribing to cable, DTH or IPTV]. Digital cable contributed a further 145 million, pay DTH 59 million, with pay IPTV providing an additional 31 million.”

“The universe is not static as 95 million TV households were added between 2006 and 2010 to bring the total to 1,355 million. Of the additions, 64 million came from the Asia Pacific region.”

Analog terrestrial was still the most popular platform at end-2010, accounting for 35.9% of the world’s TV households, with analog cable second at 21.4%. Digital cable was the most popular digital platform, securing 14.9% of TV households. Pay digital DTH was next at 10.3%, followed by FTA (free-to-air) digital DTH with 7.2%. About 6.9% of homes were primary FTA DTT, with 0.6% pay DTT. Pay IPTV penetration reached 2.6% at end-2010, up from only 0.3% at end-2006.

Of the 338 million digital TV households added between 2006 and 2010, 169 million were in the Asia Pacific region, bringing its total to 218 million. China became the largest digital TV household nation in 2010. Only Finland was completely digital by end-2010.

Top 10 digital countries at end-2010

   Households (000)     Penetration (%)
-------------------   -----------------
China       109,500   Finland       100
USA          99,786   Spain          99
India        37,100   Bahrain        98
Japan        33,642   Croatia        95
France       25,044   Kuwait         95
UK           24,675   UK             94
Germany      22,525   France         94
Italy        19,305   Tunisia        94
Spain        16,558   Puerto Rico    92
Brazil       13,375   Saudi Arabia   91

Source: Digital TV Research Ltd

Pay TV penetration (analog and digital combined) reached half of the world’s TV households by end-2010, up from 40% at end-2006. Penetration at end-2010 varied from 90% in North America to 14% in the Middle East and Africa. Pay TV penetration was highest in the Netherlands, at 99% by end-2010. However, China had the most pay TV subs, at 195 million by end-2010. The USA and India also had more than 100 million pay TV subs.

Top 10 pay TV countries at end-2010

   Households (000)     Penetration (%)
-------------------   -----------------
China       194,500   Netherlands    99
USA         103,118   Belgium        96
India       100,100   Norway         93
Japan        24,642   Sweden         92
Germany      20,825   USA            90
Russia       19,660   South Korea    90
South Korea  15,045   Latvia         88
France       14,732   Denmark        88
UK           14,325   Canada         88
Canada       11,707   Switzerland    84

Source: Digital TV Research Ltd

Pay TV revenues reached US$155 billion in 2010, up from US$124 billion in 2006. Cable (analog and digital combined) generated the highest revenues by platform, with US$76 billion in 2010. However, cable revenues are flattening and DTH will overtake it in 2011. IPTV revenues reached US$6 billion in 2010, up from less than US$1 billion in 2006. North America is the largest provider of pay TV revenues, but its total dropped in 2010 as competition and bundling had an impact.

Top 10 countries by pay TV revenues at end-2010 (US$ million)

USA      63,760
UK        9,222
Japan     7,456
Canada    6,828
China     6,293
France    5,419
Germany   4,957
Italy     4,461
India     4,071
Brazil    2,936

Source: Digital TV Research Ltd