Altice has seen a meteoric rise in the past 18 months, transitioning from a private equity firm with a diverse range of smaller stakes to a multinational TV and communications company. It now joins the largest global pay-TV players who control close to 50 per cent of the world's subscription TV revenue, according to a new report by Ampere Analysis.
Until 18 months ago industry veterans John Malone and Rupert Murdoch where the two major pay-TV figureheads, with US giant Comcast also registering a significant portion of global pay TV revenue at 9.3 per cent. But now there are two new players: AT&T with a staggering 18 per cent (following its acquisition of DirecTV), and Altice with just over three per cent pending the completion of its now-financed Cablevision bid.
Half of consumer spending on pay-TV globally now goes into the accounts of just five groups of companies, Ampere Analysis has found. Entities owned directly or indirectly by Malone will have almost ten cent of global pay-TV revenue if the merger of Charter, Time Warner Cable and Bright House is finalised, while Murdoch's stakes in Sky Europe and Foxtel take his global share to seven per cent. Five entities controlling one half of the pay-TV market means challenging negotiations for the supply chain, however, they also face the risk of viewers bypassing intermediaries and accessing content directly, in new ways.
Beyond consolidation, the opportunity for growth in pay-TV revenues is geographical expansion and moving into emerging markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. To date, the top entities have been slow to move outside the west, but Ampere Analysis believes that is changing.
The merger between AT&T and DirecTV created the largest pay-TV group in the US, and also leads the way in global pay-TV revenue (Q2 2015). As well as further US consolidation, and access to new markets in central and South America, the merger of the two companies presents an important opportunity to offer a significant quad-play bundle to US consumers.
Consolidation tactics are also at play in Europe. The most significant activity recently was the creation of Sky Europe, now the largest pay-TV broadcaster in the region, with 27.8 per cent of western European pay-TV revenue. By comparison, rival Liberty Global has 12.5 per cent, despite similar subscriber numbers in western Europe.
It has taken $50 billion and an aggressive 18-month global expansion plan for private equity firm Altice to achieve its significant 3.1 per cent slice of global pay-TV revenues (Q2 2015). That includes the creation of Numericable-SFR in France, the purchase of Portugal's largest telecoms provider Portugal Telecom, and acquisitions of US cable providers Suddenlink and soon Cablevision.
However, Guy Bisson, research director at Ampere Analysis believes that unlike the four largest players, Altice's strategy lacks focus. One option for Altice in the US would be to merge the services of fixed line cable with internet services and wireless communications, as it did in Europe with Numericable-SFR. But to do this Altice would need to purchase a mobile operator to provide quad-play services an offering not as developed in the US as it is Europe. This would not be cheap. Vodafone sold its stake in US-based Verizon Wireless for $130 billion in 2014. Altice's $50 billion shopping bill looks similar to the early days of Liberty Global, which having bought numerous operations only later began to divest non-core assets and create a geographically co-joined footprint, he commented.
After almost three decades of strong growth for pay-TV operators, a cord-cutting' trend is beginning to emerge among consumers. Defection from the traditional pay-TV companies means that net additions of new subscribers have been in decline since 2011, and will reach just over 25.7 million worldwide this year, the lowest figure for over ten years. Slow subscriber growth in these regions will hamper future prospects beyond more consolidation, so it's vital that operators look to new markets.
Analyst Daniel Gadher explained: Beyond AT&T/DirecTV which has a significant presence in a number of countries in central and South America, and Liberty Global exploring the South American market (even more so should its mooted acquisition of Cable and Wireless Communications complete), there is very limited investment among these groups in emerging Asian, African and Middle Eastern markets. These geographies have considerable potential for expansion in the coming years and if the groups we identified are to maintain their dominance, expansion into these high growth markets will be crucial.
Although currently a minor part of its business, Altice has begun to recognise the opportunity in emerging markets. The group now has a small number of assets in central America and the Caribbean, and a stake in African communications group Wananchi (alongside Liberty Global).
www.ampereanalysis.com
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
Altice has seen a meteoric rise in the past 18 months, transitioning from a private equity firm with a diverse range of smaller stakes to a multinational TV and communications company. It now joins the largest global pay-TV players who control close to 50 per cent of the world's subscription TV revenue, according to a new report by Ampere Analysis.
