Malta digital pay TV grows 5.7% in 2011

The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) has published its Communications Market Review for the period July to December 2011.

The take-up of Pay TV services continues to increase year-on-year over the DTTV and digital cable platforms. On the other hand, the take-up of services over the analogue cable platform is on the decline as no new services are being offered on this platform , and end-users are slowly switching to one of the available digital platforms.

As at the end of 2011, digital cable features as the predominant Pay TV platform accounting for 49.6% of the total number of Pay TV subscribers, up from nearly 49% as at the end of 2010. The proportion of subscribers on the digital cable platform also increased during the same period, up from nearly 49% to 49.6%. Meanwhile, the proportion of subscribers on the analogue cable platform declined in the 12 months to December 2011, from 9% to 6.8%.

The number of Pay TV subscriptions increased by 3.3% since December 2010, to reach 148,454 as at the end of last year. Pay TV subscriptions are grouped into three broad categories: DTTV subscriptions, cable analogue subscriptions and digital cable subscriptions.

Pay TV subscriptions at end of period:

                                          2009
                ------------------------------
                    Q1      Q2      Q3      Q4
                ------  ------  ------  ------
Cable analogue  45,287  38,073  34,647  29,100
Cable digital   53,860  55,294  61,579  65,265
DTTV            36,360  39,432  42,474  44,971

                                          2010
                ------------------------------
                    Q1      Q2      Q3      Q4
                ------  ------  ------  ------
Cable analogue  23,939  19,658  16,758  12,941
Cable digital   68,096  71,029  70,429  70,366
DTTV            48,476  52,499  57,825  60,446

                                          2011
                ------------------------------
                    Q1      Q2      Q3      Q4
                ------  ------  ------  ------
Cable analogue  12,721  11,708  11,107  10,156
Cable digital   70,844  72,032  72,634  73,631
DTTV            61,278  63,982  64,927  64,667

As at the end of the reporting period, the number of digital Pay TV subscriptions totalled 138,298 whilst the number of analogue Pay TV subscriptions totalled 10,156.

The total for digital Pay TV subscriptions encompasses 73,631 digital cable subscrptions and 64,667 DTTV subscriptions.

Both platforms recorded an increase in the number of subscriptions since the end of 2010. DTTV subscriptions increased by 4,221 or nearly 7%, whilst digital cable subscriptions increased by 3,265 or 4.6%.