U.S. pay TV revenue will drop to $56 billion in 2025, down from a peak of $105 billion in 2015, according to a new forecast from Digital TV Research.
It also projects that global pay TV revenue, which hit a peak of $202 billion in 2016, will fall to $152 billion in 2025. That would be below 2010’s $175 billion, “despite the number of pay TV subscribers rising by 345 million between 2010 and 2025,” wrote Digital TV Research analyst Simon Murray.
The top five pay TV countries will account for roughly 54 percent of global pay TV revenue by 2025, down from 62 percent in 2019, the firm also predicts.
The revenue drop will be driven by subscriber declines in mature markets. The U.S. will lose $23 billion in pay TV revenue between 2019 and 2025, Murray estimates. But its projected $56 billion total then will still be higher than anywhere else. China’s pay TV sector revenue will fall slightly to $9.3 billion.
The U.K. and Canada will each lose nearly $1 billion to $5.8 billion and $5.1 billion, respectively, expects the analyst. India will go against the trend and add $800 million to overtake those two countries and reach nearly $6 billion in sector revenue in 2025, according to the Digital TV Research forecast.
“Despite poor results in some countries, there is still plenty of life left in pay TV,” wrote Murray. “Digital TV Research forecasts 34 million additional pay TV subscribers between 2019 and 2025” to bring the global user base to 1.06 billion.
China will continue to supply a third of the world’s pay TV subscribers, with 328 million expected by the end of 2025. India will account for another 183 million. Concluded Murray: “China and India will together provide half the world’s pay TV subscribers by 2025.”
