Advanced Television

Spain: Pay-TV way ahead of FTA

February 23, 2018

From David Del Valle in Madrid

Pay-TV in Spain is significantly increasing its revenue share well ahead of FTA.  In the third quarter of the year, pay-TV made €523.1 million, up 14 per cent on the same period last year, according to the CNMC. Meanwhile, FTA TV’s revenues amounted to €371.4 million, up just 3.6 per cent.

Most of the pay-TV revenues stemmed from subscriber fees with IPTV making €301.3 million, up 23 per cent. Subscriber fees for cable TV amounted to €56.5 million versus €47 million the same period last year; online TV revenues were at €5.4 million. By contrast, satellite TV’s subscriber fees decreased from €134.6 million to €121.4 million.

Total pay-TV subscribers amounted to 6.4 million, up 260,000 than the previous quarter, with IPTV taking 3,805,000, followed by cable with 1,477,000 and satellite, 811,000 and others 310,000.

The CNMC data shows that 88.4 per cent of pay TV subscribers enjoy a convergent package, up 0.8 per cent on the previous quarter.

Total TV ad revenues totalled €358 million in the third quarter, out of which €340.7 million came from FTA TV and €17.3 million to pay-TV.  FTA private TVs made €317.9 million, 93.6 per cent of the total. The duopoly Mediaset-Atresmedia controlled 84.3 per cent of the TV ad market.

Spaniards watch an average of 3 hours and 20 minutes of TV per day, mostly through DTT (77.2 per cent).

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, FTA, Markets, Pay TV, Research