• by Wayne Friedman , May 23, 2013

North American pay TV subscribers may continue to show little or no growth for the first quarter, but worldwide pay-TV business continues to climb, especially in emerging markets.

Worldwide pay TV subscribers -- business from cable, satellite and telco businesses -- grew by 8% in 2012 to 800 million, according to the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Multimedia Research Group.

Big growth was obtained in Asia -- specifically China, India and Vietnam -- adding on 40 million new subscribers and totaling 445 million. Confirming what other research has shown, two established markets -- North America and Western Europe -- experienced little or no growth.

North American pay-TV businesses, for example, were at 113 million in 2012 -- virtually the same as the previous year.

Overall, global cable TV subscriber households grew a couple of percentage points in 2012 over 2011 to just over 520 million. Worldwide satellite TV service subscribers grew solidly in 2012 -- with rising business from Russia and India -- and was up 12% to just over 202 million. Telco companies' pay-TV business was up 36% -- the best of any TV-video distribution category, to 77 million.

The report's results came from 60 cable, 100 satellite, and 140 IPTV pay-TV operators.

advertisement

advertisement