Global pay-TV subs continue to grow

A Multimedia Research Group report shows the worldwide pay-TV subscriber market has reached a new high water mark.  Following a year of solid 8 per cent growth, there are now 804 million worldwide pay-TV subscriber households.

The global pay-TV subscriber base, which is made up of cable TV, satellite TV, and telco-based IPTV subscribers, is growing most rapidly in the Asia-Pacific region.  Last year, over 38 million new households in Asia signed up for pay-TV service.  Overall, on a worldwide basis two out of every three new pay-TV households in 2012 were in the Asia-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, the more mature pay-TV markets are hardly growing at all.  In North America, pay-TV subscriber households stayed flat during 2012, ending the year pretty much where they began with 112 million subscriber households.  There was a similar story in Western Europe, where total pay-TV subscriber households increased by just under 3 per cent last year.

Further highlights from the report include:

• 56 per cent of the world’s 1.43 billion TV households now subscribe to a pay-TV service.

• In terms of the specific pay-TV service platforms, IPTV subscriber households grew the most in 2012, rising by over 30 per cent.  Total satellite TV households grew by just over 10 per cent last year.

• Cable TV subscribers still account for the largest segment of the pay-TV subscriber universe.  At the end of 21012, 63 per cent of all global pay-TV subscriber households were cable TV households.