16% of Spanish pay-TV households become first-time subscribers in 2015


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| 02 March 2016




Even though the country has a high number of cord-shavers, cord-cutters and cord-nevers, Spain is enjoying a ramp up of pay-TV subscribers, according to research firm Parks Associates.



RTVN 2 Mar ParksIndeed the Connected Consumer in Europe survey shows that 16% of pay-TV households in Spain actually subscribed to the services for the first time during 2015. It also found that Spanish consumers are more likely than consumers in other Western European markets either to have never had pay-TV or to have cancelled pay-TV in favour of online video sources.

The data also reveals that Spain actually exceeds the US in percentage of cord-cutters and broadband households that watch online video, but in the other surveyed countries — that is the UK, France, and Germany — the incidence of cord-cutting was far lower than in the US. The percentage of consumers in those countries cancelling pay-TV services and instead using online video is half the rate seen in the US.

"First-time adoption of pay-TV is up among Spanish broadband households as is the penetration of pay TV overall," said Brett Sappington, director, research, Parks Associates and author of the report. "The Spanish pay-TV market in general has a very active, cost-conscious base of subscribers, with higher-than-average rates of downgrades and upgrades and a substantial population of cord-nevers."