According to Digital TV Research, the number of digital pay TV subscribers in Eastern Europe will increase from 25.49 million in 2010 to 61.57 million in 2017 and on to 78.08 million by 2023. The research house forecasts that digital pay TV sub numbers will climb by 27% between 2017 and 2023.
Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: "Eastern Europe is slowly ridding itself of the legacy of analog cable TV. Twenty million households still subscribed to analog cable at end-2017 - more than digital cable. Many of these homes receive very basic packages, often as part of their rent. Some of the remaining analog cable subs do not want to convert to more expensive digital pay TV platforms and will therefore switch to DTT."
Pay TV revenues in Eastern Europe peaked at $6.53 billion in 2017 and are expected to slowly fall to $6.33 billion by 2023. Analog cable revenues are expected to drop by $1 billion over the forecast period, so digital pay TV revenues are expected to increase by $769 million to $6.25 billion.