MENA pay-TV revenues to reach $3.62bn
January 15, 2018
Pay-TV revenues for the 20 countries covered in the eighth edition of the Middle East and North Africa Pay TV Forecasts report from Digital TV Research will reach $3.62 billion (€2.97bn) in 2023 – up by only 7.8 per cent on 2017. Pay-TV revenues will fall in 2018. They will be flat in 2019 before starting a slow recovery.
Concentrating just on the 13 Arabic-speaking countries, pay-TV revenues will grow by 24 per cent from $1.18 billion in 2017 to $1.46 billion in 2023, despite pay-TV subscriptions rising by 47 per cent over the same period to 5.84 million. If subscriptions are growing faster than revenues, then ARPUs must be falling.
According to Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, the region has always been difficult for pay-TV, with many homes receiving many FTA channels and rampant piracy being commonplace. “beIN is shaking up the market with its strong slate of exclusive sports rights. beIN is now providing more entertainment content,” he advised.
beIN’s moves have hit long-established rival OSN. OSN benefits from exclusive long-term deals with all Hollywood studios. However, OSN has struggled to push its subscriber base much beyond 1 million subscribers.
“Competition is increasing – not only from beIN, but also from the multitude of SVOD platforms that have launched in recent years,” explained Murray. “These platforms compete more directly against OSN than beIN due to their emphasis on drama. No SVoD platforms can compete against beIN with live sports provision. OSN’s reaction was to cut its subscription prices substantially in February 2017. Digital TV Research believes that further cuts will be made as OSN struggles to hold on to its subscriber base until its fees are just above beIN’s.”
OSN’s revenues will reach $498 million in 2023 – down from $700 million in 2015. beIN’s revenues will exceed OSN’s in 2022. beIN’s revenues will double between 2016 and 2023.
beIN will overtake OSN by subscriber numbers in 2018. beIN is forecast to have 1.87 million satellite TV subscribers by 2023 – ahead of OSN’s 1.46 million [so excluding subscribers to their channels on other platforms such as IPTV and cable].
beIN’s sister company Digiturk will retain regional market leadership despite more intense competition in Turkey.
Israel will experience cord-cutting. Israel will lose 27,000 pay-TV subs between 2017 to 2023. Digital TV Research forecasts that Israeli pay TV revenues will fall from more than $1 billion in 2015 to $767 million in 2023 as cheaper OTT platforms force traditional pay-TV operators to lower their fees.