May 2013

PAY TV IN THE NETHERLANDS

The Dutch telecom regulator OPTA has released its annual report on the Pay TV market in the Netherlands.

The total number of cabled homes is 5,033,000, out of 7,730,000 homes passed, or 68.9% on a national level

All other TV distribution platforms (digital terrestrial, digital satellite, IPTV over DSL, FTTH) total 2,697,000 homes.

According to OPTA's figures Ziggo CATV is the biggest Pay TV provider in the country, followed by UPC and KPN.

OPTA said there are still 1,434,000 homes solely dependent on analog reception. Currently, only Cable TV networks offer analog TV.

Dutch digital TV penetration has now reached 6.3 million subscriptions at the end of Q3, 2012, or over 81% of all TV homes.

IPTV: RAPID GROWTH

Cable TV homes in the Netherlands have not grown substantially. The growth of digital is mainly attributable to IPTV over copper and fibre.

The number of digital TV homes on IPTV grew by 77,000 or 3% to 2.7 million households during the third quarter, compared with just 20,000 new CATV homes. n