January 2010

ASIA - MORE PAY TV SUBS THAN REST OF WORLD COMBINED

The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has published new data for subscription TV penetration across the Asia Pacific. According to CASBAA, there are now 326 million pay-TV homes in the Asia-Pacific region. This is a growth of 26 million homes in 2009, representing an increase of 8.66% over last year.

According to CASBAA estimates, backed by global data, subscription television in Asia Pacific now reaches more homes than the rest of the world (ROW) combined. Digital pay-TV subscription households now account for over 115 million homes. "These are very encouraging figures," said Simon Twiston Davies, the CEO of CASBAA. "Much of the digital promise of the last five years is now being delivered."

The figures were declared during CASBAA's conference in Hong Kong in early November.

18 NEW PAY TV PLATFORMS

In the past 1 year, there has been - not only an increase in the number of pay TV subscribers, but 18 new pay platforms have commenced operations during the year. These new players are geographically dispersed across most of the Asian Pacific countries. The new pay operators in 2009 were : Hikari TV (Japan); Korea Telecom and SK Telecom (Korea); Cignal (PLDT), G-Sat (Global Destiny), PLDT/Smart (MyTV) (Philippines); Aora-TV and Okevision (Indonesia); Top Up TV (Next Step Co.) (Thailand); VSTV (VTV/Canal Overseas), VTC (HD channels), HTV (Ho Chi Minh TV), FPT Telecom and VNPT (Vietnam National Posts & Telecom) (Vietnam); Telecom Malaysia (Malaysia); Reliance, Videocon and Bharti Airtel (India).

They represent diverse media platforms such as IPTV, DTV and digital Cable TV.

Overall digital penetration in the Asia Pacific region averages to 35% across 14 markets.

MAINLY CHINA & INDIA

Despite the emergence of new platforms in so many countries in the region, China and India have spearheaded much of the g rowth. The 2 countries together actually account for 90% of all Asian pay-TV subscribers in 2009 ! Despite these numbers, the per-capita Pay TV revenues from Chinese and Indian Pay TV subscribers are amongst the lowest in the world.

China currently has 69 million digital video connections.

India comes in at a distant second with 19 million digital pay-TV households.

Indian DTH platforms claim 16 Million Pay DTH homes. There are 816,192 Digital CATV STBs in the Mandatory CAS areas, according to TRAI's report for 2009 Q-2. Also according to the same TRAI report, Indian DTH has grown 15.89% per quarter, between Q-1 and Q-2 this year!

CATV networks across India are also migrating to digital CATV, voluntarily, to upgrade their services and provide better picture quality and larger number of digital Cable TV channels, compared to DTH platforms.

Speaking at the same CASBAA conference in Hong Kong, Indian media baron Subhash Chandra (who controls Cable MSO WWIL, DTH Platform DishTV and the Zee TV channels) pointed out that 50-60% Of Indian DTH subscribers also have Cable TV. Hence Cable TV networks in India are not yet feel a pinch against the rapid growth of DTH in the country.

PIRACY

Meanwhile, CASBAA's annual pay-TV piracy survey of 15 Asia Pacific markets conducted in association with Standard Chartered Bank indicates that a growth in the pay TV market, has also resulted in higher piracy. "Pay-TV is becoming more attractive," said Twiston Davies, "but that means more people want to steal."

Standard Chartered estimates that pay TV piracy has resulted in a loss of US$ 1.94 billion in annual revenue to the industry in the past 12 months. "This estimate uses highly conservative assumptions; actual totals are likely to be much higher," claims Lee Beasley, Director of Media & Entertainment, Origination & Client Coverage at Standard Chartered Bank. Last year's CASBAA piracy survey produced an estimate of US$ 1.75 billion in annual pay-TV revenue leakage in Asia.

As new markets open, previously hidden pockets of piracy have become apparent as in Indonesia, for instance, where the local industry and government have paid increasing attention to pay-TV signal theft in the last year. "Likewise, Vietnam is going through the same process," said Beasley.

In some countries, piracy has declined as investment in digital technology make signals more difficult to steal. Thus, piracy numbers in Hong Kong and Manila have declined as cable operators have deployed new digital transmission systems.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has estimated that pay TV piracy has cost regional governments at least US$ 247 million in uncollected taxes.

The biggest revenue losers were the governments in Thailand (US$ 76 million), Pakistan (US$ 56 million) and the Philippines (US$ 39 million).