Global Pay-TV will reach 907m in 2013

The global pay TV market saw strong growth in 2012, with nearly 47 million new subscribers taking the total size of the market to an estimated 864 million households. Over the same period, growth in digital terrestrial markets was relatively flat, indicating that even in tough economic conditions people are willing to pay to be entertained.

As always, content is king, and it’s likely that high-quality content and access to the most recent movie releases are what’s driving the growth of pay TV services.  However, as over-the-top service providers such as Netflix start to bid for this content as well, pay TV operators may need to revisit their strategy to look at how they can improve their offerings in order to remain competitive. While there’s no danger of pay TV services losing their dominant place in the industry just yet, the rapid growth of ITPV and over-the-top services is not something that pay TV operators can ignore.

Consumers are getting more demanding, and with increasing innovation from public service broadcasters and smart TV manufacturers, the pay TV operators will need to keep up with these trends.  Many pay TV operators are in a good place to do this, as we see in the UK with both Sky and Virgin launching major new features this year. Predictions that cable TV operators face growing pressure from IPTV mean that some operators may need to innovate more than others, though. Whether they are able to do that well enough remains to be seen.