Total revenues for U.S. cable, satellite, and telco providers is estimated to inch up slowly in the next five years.
BMO Capital Markets says there will be 1% revenue growth for U.S. MVPDs
(multichannel video program distributors) to $116.8 billion in 2020, from $115.5 billion in 2015. Globally, those businesses will see stronger growth -- with a 13% rise to $263.5 billion by 2020.
Looking at new digital pay TV businesses, the study shows that U.S. over-the-top subscription video-on-demand services -- like Netflix -- will rise to $17.4 billion by 2020, from $10.9 billion in
2017.
Newer OTT TV services -- those services packaging live, linear TV networks, like DirecTV Now, Sling TV, and future efforts from YouTube TV and Hulu -- will climb to $11.6 billion in
2020, from $4.2 billion.
While there are concerns over cord-cutting -- those dropping traditional pay TV services -- the report says, “MVPD subscriptions still make up the vast majority
of spend on paid video content and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.”
U.S. MVPD video revenue is estimated to shrink in 2020 to 70.2% of total paid video content
spending, from 79.3% in 2015 in the U.S., and decline to 59.9% of paid video content spending globally from 67.0%.