Spain: FTA loses ground on pay-TV
January 3, 2018
From David Del Valle in Madrid
The rapid take-up of pay-TV in Spain is causing FTA TV channels to lose viewers. In 2017, the three largest FTA TV stations – Tele 5, Antena 3 and the pubcaster La 1 – pulled in a combined audience rating of 36 per cent, down 1.3 per cent on 2016.
It is the lowest rating in the country’s FTA TV history – and half the of 72.4 per cent audience share is had in 1994, according to the consultancy Barlovento.
Tele 5 led the ratings for the sixth consecutive year with a share of 13.3 per cent, down 1.1 per cent, followed by Antena 3 with 12.3 per cent and La 1 with 10.4 per cent.
Pay-TV significantly grew in 2017 with a market share of 22.3 per cent versus 20.4 per cent in 2016. Of the 18.4 million homes in Spain, 6.3 million have pay-TV, representing around 15 million people.
The leading pay-TV platform is Telefónica’s Movistar Plus with 3.6 million subscribers, according to the CNMC, followed by Vodafone with 1.3 million and Orange with 520,000. Streaming TV platforms like Netflix and HBO have 1,163,000 and 414,000 subscribers, respectively.
Spaniards spent an average of 224.5 minutes a day watching TV in data taken from the months of January and December.