Pay-DTT to soar in Sub-Saharan Africa


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 05 January 2016




Digital terrestrial television (DTT) will challenge satellite as the prime pay-TV platform in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2021, according to a Digital TV Research forecast.


Satellite TV is forecast to rise from 19.3% of TV households in 2015 to 21.2% by 2021, while pay-DTT will jump from 10.2% to 19.9% over the same period.

Nearly two-thirds of TV homes in Sub-Saharan Africa were taking DTT signals by the end of 2015, up from 18.7% in 2010, says the research company’s latest Digital TV Sub-Saharan Africa Forecasts report.

Although most African countries missed the ITU’s global analogue TV switch-off date in June, complete digital migration was achieved in Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda by the end of 2015, helping achieve the overall figure of 36.3 million digital TV homes in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The number of subscribers to pay satellite services in the region climbed by just 7.4%. The leading satellite platform, MultiChoice’s DStv, which reaches 50 countries, had 2.24 million subscribers outside its native South Africa by September 2015; down from 2.56 million six months earlier and down from 2.36 million in September 2014 – in spite of lowering its decoder prices.

“DStv’s problems stem mostly from its rights to exclusive premium content, especially sports. Currency devaluation in most Sub-Saharan countries hit DStv hard. Exclusive content rights for premium content such as English Premier League soccer are usually paid for in US dollars. DStv has been compelled to increase its local currency subscription fees to cover the shortfall due to devaluation. As a result, DStv appears more expensive to locals,” said Simon Murray, author of the report.

DTT is, however, taking hold in the region, with 11 countries expected to achieve analogue switch-off by the end of 2016. Digital TV penetration will reach 99.9% in 35 countries by 2021, equating to 74.7 million homes, says Digital TV Research.

About two-thirds of TV households (50.95 million) are forecast to take a combination of pay and free-to-air (FTA) DTT services as their primary TV signal in 2021, up from just 1.4% (0.59 million) at the end of 2010. Nearly a fifth of TV households (14.85 million) will be primary pay-DTT and 48.3% of TV homes (36.10 million) will be FTA DTT by 2021.

Pay-satellite TV homes numbered 10.66 million at the end of 2015, while 5.64 million received pay-DTT. The total number of homes subscribing to pay-TV in Sub-Saharan Africa will more than double to 33.23 million by 2021, with satellite TV reaching 15.88 million and pay DTT a further 14.85 million, says Murray.

South Africa accounted for 5.95 million of the total pay-TV subscribers in Sub Saharan Africa in 2015 – a figure expected to swell to 8.62 million by 2021. Nigeria’s pay-TV base is forecast to increase from 3.63 million in 2015 to 7.52 million in 2021.