Spain: Pay-TV in over 6m homes, but income falls
May 2, 2017
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Pay-TV is Spain has captured more subscribers to convergent packages (up to five services). The latest report from the CNMC reveals that the operators are doing well in terms of subscribers, but not so well as far as revenues are concerned.
In the third quarter of 2016, pay-TV reached 6,010,000 subscribers, up 140,000 over the previous quarter. IPTV is leading the growth with a rise of 134,000 subscribers to 3.34 million, followed by cable with 36,000 pay-TV adds to 1.48 million. Sp,e 84.2 per cent of the total subscribers take a convergent offer; that is 5.06 million, up 190,000 subscribers on the previous quarter. The 5 service package is growing quickly with 192,000 new subscribers in the quarter to a total of 4.5 million.
Even though pay-TV revenues were higher than FTA TV (€458 million in the quarter versus €359 million) pay-TV operators are experiencing a fall in income as a result of the high cost of football TV rights and the lower fees that subscribers pay as a result of low cost promotions.
Pay-TV operators income over the 12 month period to September 2016 amounted to €1.775 billion, down 7.4 per cent year-on-year. In the year, however, subscribers grew by 10.6 per cent to 575,000.