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.

OTT TV and video revenues to rocket to $51 billion

Global OTT TV and video revenues [covering 64 countries] will reach $51.1 billion in 2020; a massive increase from the $4.2 billion recorded in 2010 and the $26.0 billion expected in 2015.

According to the Global OTT TV & Video Forecasts report from Digital TV Research, the US will remain the dominant territory – with OTT TV and video revenues rising by $16.6 billion between 2010 and 2020 to $19.1 billion. China’s OTT TV and video revenues will rocket from just $40 million in 2010 to $2,815 million in 2020 – to push China up to fourth place in the world rankings. OTT revenues will exceed $1 billion in 11 countries by 2020.

SVOD will become the largest revenue source in 2020, overtaking OTT advertising. SVOD will add $14 billion between 2014 and 2020, with advertising on OTT sites up by nearly $12 billion.

The report forecasts 249 million SVOD [subscription video on demand] homes by 2020, up from 20 million in 2010 and an expected 117 million by end-2015. The US will contribute 70 million SVOD homes to the 2020 total.

SVOD revenues will soar from $1.0 billion in 2010 to $7.6 billion in 2014 and onto $21.6 billion in 2020. The US generated SVOD revenues of $753 million in 2010. Its revenues will climb by 765% to $6,516 million in 2020.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “SVOD has developed even faster than we expected in our last edition a year ago. Some of this growth was spurred by Netflix’s aim to establish operations in 200 countries by end-2016. Not only has the launch of Netflix boosted each market, but the anticipation of its launch has galvanized local players into action – creating a whirlwind of promotional activity.”

Netflix’s international operations are growing fast. Digital TV Research expects its international paying subscribers to grow to 26.36 million by end-2015. We also expect that its US paying SVOD subs will reach 43.54 million by end-2015, giving a global total of 69.90 million.

For more information on the Global OTT TV & Video Forecasts report, please see the Broadband TV News webshop.