Western Europe pay TV subs to fall below 100m Western Europe’s pay TV subscriber total will slip below 100 million by 2025. However, this is no US steep decline as subscriber numbers will drop by only 2.67 million between 2019 and 2025. The number of Western European pay TV subscribers will fall by 2.6% between 2019 and 2025, with revenues down by 12.5%. Homes will pay less for TV as they move to bundles. Western Europe will have 99.86 million pay TV subscribers by 2025. All but four of the 18 countries covered by Digital TV Research will lose pay TV subscribers between 2019 and 2025. Germany will decline by the most (down by 871,000), followed by the UK (785,000). Western European TV homes by platform (mil.) 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 2019 2020 2025 Pay DTT 3 3 2 Free DTT 49 50 53 Free satellite 23 23 23 Pay Satellite 23 23 20 IPTV 36 37 40 A Cable 1 1 0 D cable 39 39 38 A terres 0 0 0 Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “IPTV is gaining subscribers at the expense of the other pay TV platforms. It overtook satellite TV in 2015 and will do the same to cable by 2023.” For more information on the Western Europe Pay TV Forecasts report, please contact: Simon Murray, [email protected], Tel: +44 20 8248 5051 Western Europe Pay TV Forecasts Table of Contents Published in April 2020, this 192-page PDF, PowerPoint and excel report comes in three parts: • Outlook: Forecasts for 18 countries in a 40-page PowerPoint document full of charts, graphs and bullet points; • Excel workbook covering each year from 2010 to 2025 for 18 countries by household penetration, by pay TV subscribers, by pay TV revenues and by major operator. As well as summary tables by country and by platform; • Insight: Detailed country-by-country analysis in an 81-page PDF document. For more information, please click here or contact [email protected] Forecasts for the following 18 countries and 82 operators: Country No of ops Operators Austria 5 Telekom Austria; Magenta; Sky; Liwest; HD Austria Belgium 6 Proximus; SFR; Telenet; VOO; Telesat/TV Vlaanderen; Orange Denmark 7 Canal Digital; Viasat; You See; Stofa; Boxer; TDC; Telia Finland 6 Elisa; Telia; DNA; Canal Digital; Viasat; Digita France 6 Orange; SFR; CanalSat; Free; Bouygues; TNT Germany 7 Vodafone; DT/T-Home; Sky; Unitymedia; Telecolumbus; HD+; Freenet Iceland 2 Vodafone, Siminn Ireland 3 Virgin; Sky; eir Italy 4 Mediaset; Sky; Telecom Italia; Vodafone Luxembourg 2 Tele des P&T; Eltrona Malta 2 Melita; Go Netherlands 5 Ziggo; Canal Digitaal; Tele 2; KPN/Digitenne Norway 5 Canal Digital; Viasat; Riks TV; Telenor; Get Portugal 4 Meo/PT; NOS; Nowo; Vodafone Spain 5 Vodafone; Telefonica/Movistar; Euskatel; Orange; Telecable Sweden 6 Canal Digital; Viasat; Com Hem; Telia; Boxer; Telenor Switzerland 3 Swisscom; UPC; Sunrise UK 4 Sky; Virgin; BT; TalkTalk SAMPLE: Denmark pay TV insight • Pay TV penetration runs high at 79% - but it will not grow. Pay TV penetration shot up in 2011 as public broadcaster TV2 moved from the FTA DTT to the pay DTT option. However, pay DTT subscribers are forecast to fall. Main assumptions behind the forecasts • Pay TV penetration is high. • Pay TV penetration will fall. • Market maturity will lead to lower ARPUs • There is a lot of cooperation between SVOD platforms and pay TV operators. Source: Digital TV Research • Competition will intensify, leading to lower TV ARPU and falling pay TV revenues from 2015. Pay TV revenues will fall by $164 million between 2019 and 2025 – or by 20%. TDC TV and YouSee operational highlights 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 TDC TV subs (000) 258 277 297 YouSee TV subs (000) 1,152 1,099 1,082 Total TV subs (000) 1,420 1,377 1,379 1,299 1,242 1,171 TDC TV ARPU (DKK) 315 305 YouSee TV ARPU (DKK) 234 242 TV ARPU (DKK) 254 256 257 263 267 Source: TDC • TDC had 1.17 million cable TV subs at end-2019; down year-on-year. TDC’s cable (YouSee) and IPTV interests accounted for 55% of Denmark’s pay TV subscribers at end-2019. TDC TV controls nearly two-thirds of the IPTV market. It had 250,000 subs at end-2019, with 245,000 expected by 2025. TDC’s consumer and business interests were rebranded as Nuuday. • The company introduced a 300Mbps broadband service in January 2015. Mobile services were added in January 2013. Providing access to 10 OTT platforms, Netflix, Viaplay, C More and HBO are available. • The company launched quad-play services in 2011 across its HFC network that covers 1.5 million premises. By 2018, TDC offered 37% of households 1,000Mbps, 70% 100Mbps and 97% 10Mbps. TDC has also covered 1 million premises with fiber. TDC had 1.92 million mobile subs and 1.02 million residential broadband ones by end-2019. • In February 2018, TDC received a takeover bid from Macquarie and some pension funds. • Denmark has 1.24 million cable households, with saturation point reached. Leading operators TDC’s YouSee and Stofa together control about 90% of cable subscribers. • Stofa’s cable subscription growth has been marginal in recent years. The company has 289,000 subs, of which half are counted via third-party local operators (mostly 300 housing associations). We do not expect any TV subscriber growth. Stofa also offers SVOD platforms C More (DKK99/month), TV2 Play (DKK49/month or free for Large package subscribers), HBO and Viaplay (DKK99/month). About 200,000 subscribers also take broadband services. Stofa is owned by Norlys. • In October 2019, the two satellite TV players, Viasat and Canal Digital, agreed to merge their consumer interests. This will formally take place in 1H20. Together they will have 1.26 million subs across the four Nordic countries. • Viasat and Canal Digital compete for Scandinavian pay satellite TV subs, together recording 4.8% penetration in Denmark at end-2019 (down from 8.7% in 2010). However, pay satellite TV subscriber numbers are falling as households opt for the less expensive alternatives on offer. Viasat Nordic pay TV operations (000) 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Denmark 86 84 75 67 61 Finland 36 34 31 28 25 Norway 120 107 91 78 69 Sweden 282 283 259 236 219 Premium satellite TV subs 526 508 456 409 374 DTC subs 510 493 489 Wholesale subs 456 506 544 428 466 469 Annualized ARPU (SEK) 5,254 5,161 5,508 5,500 5,625 Viaplay 937 1,108 1,258 1,568 Source: NENT. Country-by-country estimates by Digital TV Research • Viasat Nordic is losing premium pay satellite TV subscribers across Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. In March 2019, Modern Times Group split out Viasat and Viaplay by floating the Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT). • The company does not break down satellite subscriber figures by country, but we estimate that 57,000 subs were in Denmark at end-2019 – nearly the same as Canal Digital. On the plus side, its Viaplay SVOD platform is gaining subscribers rapidly. Viaplay (DKK99/month) offers 43 linear channels and on- demand titles. • In October 2013, MTG renewed a deal with UEFA to screen Champions League soccer in Sweden, Denmark and Norway from the 2015/16 season to the 2017/2018 season. The rights were renewed until 2020/21. In October 2015, Viasat also signed up the rights to English Premier League soccer for a further three seasons from 2016/17 in Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Canal Digital subscribers by country (000) 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 3Q19 Norway 467 459 437 419 403 383 Sweden 311 307 298 296 273 260 Finland 53 55 53 52 49 47 Denmark 81 77 74 72 68 65 Total 912 897 862 838 793 754 ARPU (NOK) 377 389 382 410 Source: Canal Digital. Note: Country estimates from 2016 by Digital TV Research • Telenor-owned Canal Digital had 754,000 premium satellite TV subscribers across the region by September 2019, falling since 2011. Danish subscriber numbers are falling. On the streaming side, Canal Digital provides access to C More, Viaplay and HBO Nordic, all of which cost DKK99/month each. Telenor has 1.64 million mobile and 107,000 fixed broadband subscribers in Denmark. Telia subscriber growth (000) 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Sweden broadband 1,275 1,306 1,299 1,286 1,287 1,263 Sweden TV 697 730 765 797 865 861 Sweden TV ARPU SEK 161 167 185 187 186 180 Sweden mobile 6,118 6,095 6,132 Finland broadband 561 527 497 464 457 473 Finland TV 481 486 489 508 553 600 Finland TV ARPU € 8.80 9.00 9.60 8.90 8.60 9.00 Finland mobile 3,278 3,278 3,051 Norway broadband 0 0 0 0 417 445 Norway TV 0 0 0 0 504 480 Norway TV ARPU NOK 259 303 Norway mobile 2,345 2,325 2,276 Denmark bband 114 135 128 114 104 81 Denmark TV 20 28 28 31 24 21 Denmark TV ARPU DKK 392 376 348 342 349 391 Denmark mobile 1,479 1,451 1,435 Source: Telia • Telia had 21,000 IPTV subscribers in Denmark by end-2019, down from 31,000 in 2017. Telia began offering a la carte channel selection in late 2013. In November 2019, Telia acquired Bonnier Broadcasting, which owns several FTA channels as wel as C More.