Western European TV: Two-tier trends to the fore, as IPTV finally makes some waves
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...strength for the technology in Western Europe.
So while it has typically been a distant third pay service - behind cable and DTH, it has done better in some markets where specific features apply - like Italy (no cable), or Belgium and Switzerland (limited DTH).
But it is has now made some more widespread gains. In France it overtook cable’s pay TV subscriber total in 2010 and Informa forecasts it will overtake DTH in 2013. This will make France the first Western European country to have IPTV as its leading pay TV platform (see fig. 2).
Fig. 2: France, pay TV subscribers by platform, 2013
IPTV's strength in France is well-known however. But it is doing well in several other locations too. In Germany, IPTV overtook Sky Deutschland’s DTH total during 2010 and Informa forecasts it will do the same in Austria during 2014.
In the Netherlands and in Portugal, IPTV overtook DTH's subscriber total during 2011. A similar pattern occurred in Scandinavia, with IPTV overtaking DTH in both Denmark and Finland during 2011 and is forecast to do likewise in Sweden in 2015.
This in an abstract from Informa Telecoms and Media's market study 'Western European TV (15th edition)'. To read more, click here.
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© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media