Developing countries, smaller operators to dominate global pay-TV

The company’s Global Pay TV Operator Forecasts investigated the fortunes and future of the world’s top 503 pay-TV operators. These firms have 726 platforms – 132 digital cable, 116 analogue cable, 279 satellite, 142 IPTV and 57 DTT – across 135 countries.

It found fundamentally that the top 503 pay-TV operators will likely generate 853 million subscribers from the 1.02 billion global total by 2026, with the top 50 operators accounting for 64% of the world’s pay-TV subscribers by end-2020. This proportion is likely to drop to 62% by 2026. The top 50 will lose 20 million subscribers over the next five years. However, operators beyond the top 100 will gain subscribers over the same period.

The study revealed that between 2020 and 2026, 307 of the 503 operators (61%) will gain subscribers, with 13 showing no change and 183 losing subscribers (36%).

Digital TV Research believes that most of the subscriber growth will take place in developing countries where operators are not controlled by larger corporations. by the end of 2020, 13 operators had more than 10 million pay-TV subscribers. China and India will continue to dominate the top pay-TV operator rankings, partly as their subscriber bases climb but also due to the US operators losing subscribers.

Looking to the business generated from the new subscriber base, the Global Pay TV Operator Forecasts calculated that in 2020, 28 pay-TV operators earned more than $1 billion in revenues, but that this will drop to 24 operators by 2026. Rapid TV News