Pay TV on the Upswing in Spain

According to Parks Associates, 16% of Spanish pay TV households subscribed to pay TV for the first time last year, although the country's broadband households still exhibit high incidences of cord shaving, cord cutting, and "cord nevers." The research house says Spanish consumers are more likely than consumers in other western European markets either to have never had pay TV or to have cancelled pay TV in favor of online video sources.

"First-time adoption of pay TV is up among Spanish broadband households as is the penetration of pay TV overall," wrote Brett Sappingtom, Parks' director of research. "The Spanish pay TV market in general has a very active, cost-conscious base of subscribers, with higher-than-average rates of downgrades and upgrades and a substantial population of cord nevers."

Spain actually exceeds the United States in percentage of cord cutters and broadband households that watch online video, but in the other surveyed countries - the UK, France and Germany - the incidence of cord cutting is far lower than in the United States.

"The percentage of consumers in the UK, Germany and France cancelling pay TV services and instead using online video is half the rate seen in the U.S. market," Sappington said.