By
Chris Dziadul
Guy Bisson


Maria Rua Aguete

The impact of the 2009 and on-going economic downturn has undoubtedly had a less severe impact on the cable and wider pay TV industry than many soothsayers predicted.  Although there were notable exceptions, the majority of cable companies weathered the economic storm and are already showing signs of returning to healthy growth in customer acquisitions and income. Even those that seemed for a time to be on an unstable footing, like Spain's Ono, have found ways to refinance their operations and reset themselves on a path to growth.

Cable companies have been able to continue to grow revenues and ARPU in the face of recession despite wide-spread stagnation of subscriber growth and, in many markets, a decline in core TV customers. The key has been triple-play and the up-selling of additional services as well as gradual success in the on-going war of attrition to convert Europe's large analogue cable TV subscriber base to digital.

For the pay TV industry at least, it appears that the worst is now over. Indeed, many free-to-air operations are looking to routes into the pay TV industry in order to shore up their finances in the face of on-going declines in advertising.

However, it would be wrong to say there was no impact on the cable industry of the economic downturn. Growth of certain key operating metrics slowed during 2009, at times at levels that suggest more than just a natural decay. The rate at which digital cable grew slowed to 20 per cent in 2009, down from more than 30 per cent year-on-year in the previous 12 months. But the number of digital customers still grew strongly to reach 23.4m.

There were declines in the number of cable TV subscribers in a number of markets including the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Hungary and several other Central and Eastern European markets, but this is more an impact of increased competition in the multichannel space than an obvious effect of the economic downturn. Cable has continued to grow its revenue and ARPU despite the declines as it increasingly pushes towards a triple-play subscriber base and reaps the benefits of the transition from analogue to digital TV and this positive trend will continue in 2010.

Highlights:

• The European cable industry generated €19.3bn in revenue during 2009.
• Telecoms services via cable accounted for €8.5bn of total revenue during 2009.
• Broadband Internet is the most important telecom service offered by cable, generating €5.2bn in revenue in 2009.
• The number of digital cable subscribers grew 21% in 2009 to reach 22.9m
• The cable industry in the European Union generated €17.9bn in 2009, up nearly €500m on 2008.
• Telecoms services now account for 44 per cent of all revenue generated by cable in the European Union.
• Thirty-six per cent of TV homes in the European Union rely on cable for their TV distribution
• Average cable ARPU in the EU stands at €22. The ARPU for Western European countries is €25 while in Central and Eastern Europe, average ARPU stands at €13.73
• There are 98.4m cable RGUs in the European Union from 67m cable homes representing 1.5 RGUs per cable homes.

Tables and charts included:

• Summary: European overview
• Summary: Digital cable subscribers
• Summary: Digital cable subscribers
• Summary: Total cable subscribers that are digital (%)
• Summary: Digital cable penetration of homes passed
• Summary: Digital cable penetration
• Summary: Total Cable telephony subscribers
• Summary: Cable telephony subscribers
• Summary: % cable homes taking telephony services
• Summary: Cable telephony penetration of homes passed
• Summary: Cable telephony penetration
• Summary: Total Cable Internet subscribers
• Summary: Cable Internet subscribers
• Summary: % of unique cable homes taking Internet services
• Summary: Cable Internet penetration of homes passed
• Summary: Cable Internet penetration
• Summary: Broadband Internet revenue as a percentage of total cable revenue
• Summary: Broadband Internet revenue share of all revenue
• Summary: Total broadband market subscribers
• Summary: Total broadband market breakdown
• Summary: Total broadband market balance between cable Internet and ADSL
• Summary: Average cable revenue per subscriber
• Summary: Average cable revenue per subscriber
• Summary: Total gross cable revenue
• Summary: Total cable revenue
• Summary: Total number of subscribers vs average revenue per subscriber
• Summary: Total number of homes passed by cable vs average revenue per subscriber
• Summary: Cable penetration of TV households vs average revenue per subscriber
• Summary: Cable industry at a glance
• Summary: European broadband launch schedules
• Summary: Year of first cable launch by country
• Summary: Cable industry at a glance
• Summary: Television households passed by cable
• Summary: Cable penetration of television households
• Summary: Cable industry at a glance
• Summary: Homes passed as a percentage of all households
• Summary: Cable industry at a glance
• Summary: Cable penetration of homes passed
• Summary: Cable industry at a glance
• Summary: Gross cable subscribers
• Summary: Total Cable RGUs
• Summary: Total TV cable revenue
• Summary: Total internet cable revenue
• Summary: Total gross cable revenue
• Summary: Western Europe totals
• Summary: Central & Eastern Europe totals
• Summary: All Europe totals
• Summary: EU totals
• Summary: DOCSIS . Deployment - By Country
• Summary: DOCSIS . Deployment - By Member
• Summary: Middleware choices by operator
• Summary: Conditional access choices by operator
• All countries: Key data
• All countries: Cable operator subscribers
• All countries: Cable operator service launch dates
• All countries: Cable operator market shares
• All countries: Market data

Pages: 274

Tables & charts: 324

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