Pay TV penetration close to saturation point in North America

October 2nd, 2012

North America pay TV revenues to peak in 2013

CAMBRIDGE — The Digital TV Consultancy has announced that the ‘Digital TV North America 2012‘ report has been added to its Market Research store.

According to the report, from Digital TV Research, pay TV revenues in North America will peak in 2013, before gradually falling by $2.6 billion to reach $88.2 billion in 2017. The Digital TV North America report concludes that TV ARPU is being forced down as cable operators and telcos convert their subscribers to dual-play or triple-play bundles, though blended ARPU is rising.

Pay TV penetration has almost reached saturation point in Canada and the US, so pay TV operators continue to fight between themselves (mainly to capture analog cable subs) for new subscribers. Despite no movement in the penetration figure, the number of pay TV subscribers will climb by 9 million between 2011 and 2017 to 120 million.

Digital penetration was 86% at end-2011, and will reach 100% by 2016. Of the 25 million digital homes to be added between 2011 and 2017, 13 million will come from cable, 7 million from IPTV and 4 million from DTH.

The report covers Canada and the USA. Subscriber, households and revenue forecasts are included for the period from 2007 to 2017 for cable TV, IPTV, satellite DTH and terrestrial broadcasting. In addition, dual-play and triple-play forecasts are provided for IPTV and cable.