US pay-TV saturation point
October 3, 2007
As IPTV services emerge, telecom companies face a fairly saturated pay-TV market in the U.S, as 82 per cent of all US households reported having a pay-TV subscription in 2006. According to a recent survey by Gartner, this is forecast to increase to 84 per cent by the end of 2011.
While there are a number of households that subscribe to a telephone company for IPTV services, this segment currently accounts for less than 1 per cent of the total pay-TV subscriber market. This is expected to increase to almost 8 per cent by 2011, mostly at the expense of subscriber loss from the cable companies.
“The US pay-TV market is dominated by cable and satellite providers by a factor of two to one,” said Amanda Sabia, principal research analyst for Gartner. “As the availability of IPTV offerings from telecom providers increase competition in this market, understanding what consumers currently receive, and what they will want from their pay-TV provider, will be critical to gaining or protecting market share.”