Pay TV grow continues with gains in Middle East & Africa

The growth of pay television continues, as providers embrace multiscreen services to offer subscribers more viewing options. The Multiscreen Index, published by informitv, shows a 1.4% increase in digital television subscriber numbers across 100 leading pay TV services around the world in the first quarter of 2014. They collectively gained 4.17 million video customers over three months and 17.43 million year on year, an increase of 5.2%.

The 100 multichannel pay TV services in the Multiscreen Index cover over 30 countries and represent around 330 million subscribing homes worldwide.

Services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa gained the most subscribers, led by Tricolor in Russia, adding 340,000 in three months.

Satellite services made the greatest gains over the quarter, just ahead of telco networks, while operators in India accounted for most of the gains for cable.

Sixty-five percent of pay TV services in the Index now deliver to multiple screens in addition to the traditional television, including phones, tablets and other network-connected devices.

The informitv Multiscreen Index shows continued growth in pay TV subscriptions worldwide, said Dr William Cooper, the founder and chief executive of informitv. Across the hundred services in the Index, net subscriber gains far exceed net losses.

Two thirds of services in the Index reported net subscriber gains. The 10 services with the largest gains added 2.45 million video customers over the quarter. The 10 reporting the largest losses collectively lost 0.28 million video customers in three months.

The multiscreen tracker, a selection of 10 of the leading services in each of the three major regions covered, showed an overall increase of 733,560 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2014.

The top 10 services in the US that report subscriber numbers added 314,300 digital video customers in the first quarter of 2014. Strong gains by the telco networks over the year offset losses by some cable companies. The planned mergers of Comcast with Time Warner Cable and AT&T with DIRECTV will lead to a greater disparity between the major providers and smaller operators.

www.multiscreenindex.com

This story also appears on IBC's Content Everywhere.

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