Western Europe still has over 100 million pay-TV subscribers, and this number will rise until 2022 despite the rise in OTT services. This is according to the Western Europe Pay TV Forecasts report from Digital TV Research.
The Western European pay-TV market is mature, but, unlike North America, cord-cutting has not yet had a significant effect. Between 2016 and 2022 the pay-TV market will grow by 6.7%, and this means an addition of nearly seven million more subscribers, taking the total to 106 million. Western Europe will cross the 100 million pay TV subs mark in June this year.
Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said that the number of digital pay-TV subscribers will increase by 14 million over the same period, representing an increase of 15.6%. However, analogue cable subscribers will fall from 8 million in 2016 to 500,000 in 2022.
The research shows that much of the subscriber growth will come from countries with traditionally low pay-TV penetration, with two-thirds of the additions coming from Italy, which will add 1.47 million subscribers between 2016 and 2022, which is a 20% rise. Spain will add 1.36 million subscribers, and increase of 23%, and France will add 1.41 million subscribers, and increase of 11%. However, growth in subscriber numbers will be lower than 3% for eight of the 18 countries.
Digital TV Research Figures for Western European TV Households 2010-2016
Broadcast in Europe – Chart by Meko – click for higher resolution
