A quarter of television subscriptions in Europe could be delivered online by 2027. While cable and satellite delivery will steadily but not dramatically decline, any growth will come from online distribution. Pay television will therefore increase to just over half the households in Europe by 2027.
Dataxis forecasts that cable and satellite will decline by 16% and 10% of their subscriber base by 2027.
Cable television service providers will gradually continue to migrate from their traditional hybrid fibre and coaxial infrastructure to fibre networks using internet protocols.
Satellite service providers like Sky have already begun to evolve their offering to online delivery. The Sky Glass and Sky Stream services are both delivered online.
Telco operators will continue to grow their internet protocol services over their managed networks. IPTV dominates some markets like France, Spain and Portugal. France alone accounts for 60% of IPTV subscribers in Europe.
Online distribution over the top of unmanaged networks will see the greatest growth. Dataxis forecasts that by 2027 these OTT services will account for 60 million homes across Europe, representing nearly 19% of the subscription television market.
With pay television becoming increasingly based on internet protocols, OTT is forecast to catch up with IPTV over the next decade. However, monthly average revenue for the online services is likely to be significantly lower than for traditional pay television.