Cable threatened by satellite and IPTV

The global pay TV market was worth US$125 billion (€90 billion) in the first half of 2011 and is forecast to grow to $353 billion by 2015, according to Infonetics Research.


The research group said future pay TV growth would be driven by satellite and pay TV operators, with cable operators’ share of the market set to decline.

“In 2008, cable video made up 59% of the global pay TV market, satellite video brought in 38% and IPTV was just a drop in the bucket. Now cable operators are being challenged not only by attractive pricing and services from IPTV and satellite operators, but by all over-the-top (OTT) video services, like Netflix and Amazon On-Demand, and by connected-TV devices, which are prompting consumers to cut the cord…[we] expect cable video’s share of pay TV revenue to decline as satellite video increases – nearly catching up to cable by 2015 – while IPTV services grow to 15% of the market,” said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access and video at Infonetics Research.

North America remains the highest-value pay TV market, attracting the highest ARPU, followed by Asia Pacific, which has a pay TV subscriber base almost four times the size of that of North America, according to Infonetics.