Pay-TV shows highest quarterly rise in subs for two years


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Joseph O'Halloran

| 04 April 2016




The latest edition of the informitv Multiscreen Index has revealed the strength of the pay-TV industry which it says gained a total of 8.16 million subscribers in the last quarter of 2015, an increase of just over 2%.



The rise is the highest over the last 24 months, and the report says that the ten services with the greatest gains added a total of 5.11 million television subscribers in the last quarter and 11.05 million over the course of 2015. No less than 25 of the services in the index each gained over 100,000 subscribers in three months and between them they added 7.27 million television customers.

There were 2.07 million more pay-TV subscribers in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Sky added 337,000 subscribers in Europe, while Tricolor in Russia gained 200,000. In North, Central and South America the number of subscribers rose by 1.09 million. Sky Mexico gained 230,000, while DIRECTV added 214,000 in the United States.

The largest gains though were to be found in the Asia Pacific region, which added 4.99 million subscribers. Five operators in India accounted for just over four million of them. Cable operators added the most subscribers, up by 4 million, followed by satellite with 2.95 million and telco providers up by 1.22 million.

That said, there were losses reported in the Multiscreen Index. Indeed, 17 of the 100 services reported net subscriber losses for the quarter, with a combined loss of 762,000 television customers. The largest loss was reported by AT&T U-verse, which shed 240,000 subscribers, as AT&T promoted its recent acquisition, the satellite provider DIRECTV.