According to Digital TV Research, despite adding 120 million subscribers between 2016 and 2022, subscription and pay-per-view (PPV) revenues for 522 pay TV operators will remain flat at around $185 billion. From that total, the research house estimates that 30 pay TV operators earned more than $1 billion in 2016.
The revenue share for the top 10 operators is expected to fall from 55% in 2016 to 51% in 2022. The share of the top 50 operators is expected to fall from 75% in 2016 to 73% in 2022. The United States dominates the top 10.
Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: "As global revenues are flat, this can mean only one thing: The top operators will lose revenues. In fact, 114 of the 522 operators will lose TV revenues between 2016 and 2022."
Pay TV subscriptions for the 522 operators in the forecast are expected to increase from a collective 839 million in 2016 to 963 million by 2022. Those operators took 87% of the 959 million global subscribers by end-2016, with that level expected to inch up to 88% of the 1.093 billion total by 2022.
A total of 28 operators are expected to add more than 1 million subscribers. The Asia Pacific region is expected to dominate the ranking of operators by subscriber gains between 2016 and 2022, taking 13 of the top 15 places. Only 93 of the 522 operators are expected to lose subscribers between 2016 and 2022.
