Flying in the face of challenging macroeconomic and political circumstances, pay-TV revenues in Eastern Europe are set for significant growth, says Digital TV Research.
In the fifth edition of the Digital TV Eastern Europe Forecasts report the analyst predicts pay-TV revenues to total $7.269 billion in 2020, 45% higher than in 2010. Yet the analysis also shows that the there will be an increase of $1 billion in market value between 2014 and 2020, with growth slowing considerably to only 17% in that time period.The analyst projects that digital pay-TV subscribers will increase from 25.8 million (20.7% of TV households) in 2010 to 51 million (40.0%) in 2014 and on to 76.7 million (59.4%) by 2020.
Digital TV Research believes that one of the key challenges for pay-TV in the region has been that the market has long been distorted by the legacy of analogue cable whereby many homes traditionally received a limited number of channels for a very small fee. The good news is that the research found that such subscribers are rapidly converting – mostly to digital cable but also to IPTV, satellite TV and DTT.
In all, the report calculates that by 2020 digital pay-TV revenues will likely increase by 47% ($2.2 billion) between 2014 and 2020. Despite the industry's current travails elsewhere, digital cable revenues are set to more than double between 2014 and 2020, with IPTV up by 56% and pay DTT up by 53%. However, satellite TV revenues (the main earner) will only grow by 17% over the same period.
