Global Pay TV Subscriptions Up, Revenues Down

Middlesex, UK, Sept. 19, 2019 — Digital TV Research said today its latest Pay TV report forecasts 60 million additional pay TV subscribers between 2018 and 2024 to take the global total to 1.08 billion.

China will provide 19 million additional subs and India 26 million. However, the US will lose 14.4 million pay TV subscribers between 2018 and 2024 – down by 16%.

Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “We have updated our forecasts based on June 2019 reports. The US is the world’s worst performer —  with no uplift expected over the next five years. Other countries will experience a slowdown – or even some small declines in subscriber numbers – but no other country will match the gloomy projections for the US.”

China will continue to supply a third of the world’s pay TV subscribers, with 356 million expected by end-2024. India will bring in another 17% of the total by 2024 —  or 184 million. Therefore, China and India will together provide half the world’s pay TV subscribers by 2024.

IPTV is the pay TV winner. IPTV will add 100 million subscribers between 2018 and 2024 to take its total to 357 million. Pay IPTV penetration will climb to a fifth of TV households by 2024, up from only 2.5% at end-2010 and 15.4% at end-2018.
 
Digital TV said global pay TV revenues [subscription fees and PPV movies and TV episodes] peaked in 2016 at $205 billion. But it predicts that revenues will fall by 17% to $171 billion in 2024. This is lower than 2010 - despite the number of pay TV subscribers rising by 359 million between 2010 and 2024. US pay TV revenues peaked in 2015, at $106 billion, but the total will drop to $70 billion in 2024.