According to a new report by Digital TV Research, the poor performance of economies has affected pay TV in Latin America, with the number of subscribers falling by 4 million in both 2019 and 2020.
Across the region, the number of pay TV subscribers peaked at 72.2 million in 2017. The total fell to 64.6 million in 2020. A small improvement is expected after 2023, with a total of 65.1 million subscribers in 2026.
Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “The low point for Brazil will be 2022 and a small improvement is expected thereafter. The country peaked in 2014 with 19.6 million subscribers. We anticipate 5.3 million fewer subscribers by 2026 ”.
Mexico has more pay TV subscribers than Brazil despite having half of the households with TV. Mexico has lost subscribers since its peak year in 2016 [20,9 millones]. Mexico will not cross the 20 million subscriber mark again until 2026. For its part, Venezuela, in 2020 alone, fell 2.4 million subscribers, mainly due to the exit of DIRECTV.
Across the region, digital cable surpassed pay satellite TV in 2020. Digital cable will add 2.5 million subscribers between 2020 and 2026 to reach 31 million. Satellite pay TV will lose 3 million subscribers between 2020 and 2026 for a total of 25 million.
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