Kantar: BT almost doubles pay TV market share

BT has almost doubled its share in the UK paid television market, according to new research by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

The research said that BT’s share was up by 7.8 percentage points on last year, which it attributed to premium sports content, a strong reputation and good value for money.

By contrast, TalkTalk lost almost half its share of new acquisitions, with BT benefiting more than any other company from TalkTalk’s data hacking scandal last year.

Kantar said that 40% of those leaving TalkTalk moving to BT in the months following on from the data breach.

“With such a solid reputation in the market, BT has been able to tap into its sizeable broadband base and cross-sell its television propositions, using the lure of premium football content to entice customers new to the brand,” said Fiona Keenan, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel.

According to the research, Sky saw an overall increase in share of 1.1 percentage points. However, a fall in share of new acquisitions in paid television of four percentage points “dampened its growth”.

“The launch of Sky Q has helped it increase its distance from BT in paid television acquisitions quarter on quarter. However, this hasn’t been enough to return its performance to last year’s standards,” said Keenan.

Virgin Media’s share of new customer acquisitions was up 4.0% year-on-year with gains attributed to the continued expansion of its cable service.