Rapid growth for OTT TV in Germany and Austria

Connected television in Germany and Austria has now passed the threshold into rapid and sustained growth, qaccording to a new report by Deadline Media.

The total number of sVoD subscriber grew by 46% in the first six months of 2015. This is without any noticeable cord cutting.

“The primary challenge of OTT TV is to advertising-funded broadcasters as the market becomes increasingly dominated by big US internet platforms, notably Google,” said Roger Stanyard, author of the report Connected TV in Germany and Austria.

“We believe that the advertising-funded broadcasters are now living on borrowed time, despite an expected increase in advertising revenues of 1.9-2.8% in 2015.”

Conventional linear scheduled low and premium pay television will continue to grow in importance, not least because Sky Deutschland has hedged its bets against online delivery of content. Germans are now rapidly taking pay television. Subscriptions to pay-TV are currently growing at 12% a year.

Neither German nor Austrian broadcasters can, any longer, rely on the peculiarities of their domestic markets to protect them from the winds of change. That is the internationalisation of television led by immensely powerful global players. It is a matter of deep political concern at the highest political levels in Germany and the European Union.

Connected Television in Germany and Austria shows that Amazon Prime Instant Video is currently market leader in the sVoD market place with 1,234,000 subscribers as at end of June 2015. Maxdome and Netflix were level pegging, each with 600,000 subscribers and Watchever with around 100,000.

The total number of sVoD subscriber grew by a very healthy 46% in the first six months of 2015.

Catchup TV (using HbbTV) has undoubtedly been a big success in Germany and Austria but its use by the average consumer is generally below that seen in other Western countries.
Some 16% of consumers used it within the last week compared to 26% in the USA, 36% in France and 48% in the UK.

The OTT TV environment in Germany and Austria is now very benign. By year-end 2015 58% of households are expected to own a smart TV by the end of 2015. At least 75% of these are expected to be connected to broadband, cheap streaming media dongles and boxes also make physical connection an irrelevant issue.

More information about the report Connected TV in Germany and Austria. can be downloaded from our website; the report can also be ordered from the Broadband TV News webshop.