“Worldwide Pay TV market far from dead” claims ABI Research

The pay TV market is expected to surpass a 1.1 billion subscriber base in 2024, claims a new report.

According to global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, while the increasing adoption of video streaming platforms has created significant challenges to traditional pay TV services, the pay TV market will see overall increases in the next half decade.

The report notes that Q1 2019, saw cable, satellite, and IPTV services in the US lose more than 1.2 million subscribers, but this will be offset against growth in emerging markets.

Sandi Lynn, industry analyst at ABI Research said: “High-speed broadband penetration, along with the availability of multiple streaming services, is driving the declining pay TV trend. Increasing broadband penetration is, in fact, accelerating the adoption of online video services across different regions.” 

It is expected that the fixed broadband market will exceed 1 billion subscribers by the end of 2019, with the impact of OTT varying from region to region depending on price points, content choices, and stability of video delivery across different platforms. 

The report also points out that the integration of streaming services with pay TV services through smart STBs is seeing both develop in emerging markets.

Lynn continued: “In addition to investment in content and advanced set-top boxes, investment in efficient analytics solutions are important for customer retention. Analytics solutions based on AI and machine learning algorithms can provide comprehensive insights on content consumption, prediction of churn, etc., which is valuable for content recommendation, improving user interface, and proposing best-fit packages to customers to prevent or reduce subscriber loss.”