The big news this week in the U.S. market was the Netflix Q1 2011 results, which demonstrates that we continue to witness a period of significant transition within the realm of video entertainment market leadership.
That said, perhaps there's still an upside opportunity for legacy channel-centric pay-TV service providers that invest the time and effort to prepare for the apparent market segmentation challenges -- as on-demand services continue to gain market share.
Furthermore, while some of the world markets with a historically vibrant broadcast TV viewership have lost momentum, or are already showing signs of a major contraction, other emerging markets show promise.
In some regions of the world, market fragmentation is shifting the balance of power -- and the associated video entertainment revenue streams -- as a growing segment of consumers search for lower-cost alternatives to legacy pay-TV services.
Global Pay-TV Markets in Transition
As a result of the changes within the global economy over the last few years, pay-TV subscriber numbers had been negatively impacted. Today, few in the video entertainment industry dispute the new market realities.
However, the situation seems to be improving -- as the total number of pay-TV subscribers by year-end 2010 were greater than year-end 2009 by a little over 6 percent, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.
"Nearly every region showed gains or held their own in 2010. However, cable providers were impacted, to at least some degree, by a migration to satellite and/or IPTV in virtually every region," said Stephanie Pickering, Industry Analyst at In-Stat. "Only Western Europe showed any gains in the total number of cable TV subscribers."
In-Stat's latest market research insight includes:
- China has the largest number of pay-TV subscribers with over 160 million. Shanghai Media SiTV is the largest operator; however, no other pay-TV operator has more than 5 million subscribers.
- The largest regional market of IPTV subscribers is Western Europe with nearly 17.5 million subscribers, of which France has nearly 11 million, led by CanalSat-TPS (Vivendi) and Free (iliad).
- Net Servicos de Comunicacao of Brazil is the largest cable service provider in the Caribbean and Latin America region.
- AT&T went from the sixth largest IPTV operator in the world at the end of 2009 to the fourth largest in 2010.
That said, perhaps there's still an upside opportunity for legacy channel-centric pay-TV service providers that invest the time and effort to prepare for the apparent market segmentation challenges -- as on-demand services continue to gain market share.
Furthermore, while some of the world markets with a historically vibrant broadcast TV viewership have lost momentum, or are already showing signs of a major contraction, other emerging markets show promise.
In some regions of the world, market fragmentation is shifting the balance of power -- and the associated video entertainment revenue streams -- as a growing segment of consumers search for lower-cost alternatives to legacy pay-TV services.
Global Pay-TV Markets in Transition
As a result of the changes within the global economy over the last few years, pay-TV subscriber numbers had been negatively impacted. Today, few in the video entertainment industry dispute the new market realities.
However, the situation seems to be improving -- as the total number of pay-TV subscribers by year-end 2010 were greater than year-end 2009 by a little over 6 percent, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.
"Nearly every region showed gains or held their own in 2010. However, cable providers were impacted, to at least some degree, by a migration to satellite and/or IPTV in virtually every region," said Stephanie Pickering, Industry Analyst at In-Stat. "Only Western Europe showed any gains in the total number of cable TV subscribers."
In-Stat's latest market research insight includes:
- China has the largest number of pay-TV subscribers with over 160 million. Shanghai Media SiTV is the largest operator; however, no other pay-TV operator has more than 5 million subscribers.
- The largest regional market of IPTV subscribers is Western Europe with nearly 17.5 million subscribers, of which France has nearly 11 million, led by CanalSat-TPS (Vivendi) and Free (iliad).
- Net Servicos de Comunicacao of Brazil is the largest cable service provider in the Caribbean and Latin America region.
- AT&T went from the sixth largest IPTV operator in the world at the end of 2009 to the fourth largest in 2010.