Recession fails to halt digital TV expansion in Eastern Europe

According to a new report from Digital TV Research, 2012 is a watershed year for Eastern Europe as the number of digital homes for the 15 forecast countries will exceed the analog total for the first time.

Eastern Europe TV homes by platform:

                                       2011     2012     2017
                                    -------  -------  -------
TV households (000)                 113,703  114,265  116,599
Digital cable subs (000)              7,570   10,108   27,171
Analog cable subs (000)              21,039   18,833    3,382
Pay IPTV subscribers (000)            3,832    5,518   11,209
Pay digital DTH subscribers (000)    20,701   22,720   28,431
Digital free DTH households (000)     8,125    8,305    8,800
Analog terrestrial households (000)  44,116   35,108        0
Primary FTA DTT households (000)      7,992   13,250   35,649
Primary Pay DTT households (000)        327      423      980
Digital homes (000)                  48,548   60,325  112,239
Analog homes (000)                   65,155   53,940    3,382
Pay TV subscribers (000)             53,470   57,602   71,172

Source: Digital TV Research

Report author Simon Murray said: “The recession has had an impact on the TV sector. Compared with our previous report [published in April 2011], we have noted several delays to digital terrestrial rollouts. Even though some governments have either brought forward or confirmed their original analog terrestrial switch-off plans, many do not believe that all of these deadlines will be met. In addition, we have also seen slower take-up of double-play and triple-play bundles.”

He added: “It is good news for pay TV operators that many Eastern European countries have been slow to implement analog terrestrial switchover. This favors pay TV operators as it gives them more time to convert homes to their packages before FTA DTT becomes established. Poland and Romania are prime examples of this.”

The Digital TV Eastern Europe report forecasts that the number of digital homes will nearly double between 2012 and 2017, bringing the total to 112 million. Ten of the 15 countries will be completely digital by 2017, with Estonia the first to full conversion – in 2012. Russia will add more than 26 million digital homes between 2012 and 2017, with the Ukraine increasing by more than 10 million.

Pay TV will be taken by 61% of the region’s TV homes in 2017, up from 47% at end-2011 – or up by 18 million to 71 million. Pay TV revenues in Eastern Europe will be 35% higher in 2017 (US$7,806 million) than in 2012 (US$5,780 million).

Eastern Europe pay TV revenues (US$ mil.):

                              2011   2012   2017
                             -----  -----  -----
Digital cable TV revenues    1,028  1,335  3,266
Analog cable TV subs revs    1,571  1,386    268
Cable TV revenues            2,598  2,720  3,534
IPTV revenues                  362    582  1,275
DTH revenues                 2,272  2,444  2,915
DTT revenues                    25     34     83
Total revenues               5,257  5,780  7,806

Source: Digital TV Research