Quintuple-play now dominating Spanish pay TV

Pay TV revenues in Spain increased by 15% year-on-year in the first quarter of the year to €520.7 million, driven by continued strong take-up of multi-play services, according to data compiled by regulator the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencía (CNMC).

According to the regulator, 86% of pay TV subscribers in Spain took a bundled offering. Quintuple-play packages saw the biggest growth, Some 4.9 million pay TV homes now take quint-play services comprising pay TV, fixed phone, mobile phone, and fixed and mobile internet offerings, up 99,000 on the previous quarter. Quint-play services have grown from a base of only 200,000 four years ago.

Triple and dual-play services are in relative decline meanwhile. Triple-play services accounted for only 300,000 subscribers at the end of Q1, while dual-play services including pay TV accounted for 100,000.

Standalone pay TV customers meanwhile declined from 1.4 million in Q1 2013 to 300,000 at the end of Q1 2017.

According to the CNMC, there were 6.09 million pay TV subscribers in Spain at the end of the first quarter, up by 31,000 on the previous quarter.

Some 3.483 million of these subscribers took a pay TV service via IPTV, up from 3.429 million for the previous quarter and up from 3.058 million a year earlier. Cable TV numbers also grew from 1.416 million a year earlier to 1.512 million at the end of Q1. Satellite homes on the other hand declined from 1.051 million in Q1 2016 to 857,000 a year later, while digital-terrestrial pay TV homes also declined, from 250,700 to 241,000.

Free-to-air TV revenues fell from €543.2 million at the end of last year to only €465.2 million at the end of Q1. TV advertising for the more comparable Q1 2016 was €437.9 million.

Atresmedia turned in the biggest ad revenues for the quarter, taking a 45.5% share against rival Mediaset’s 43%. Public broadcaster channels took 5.8% of the advertising pie.

Digital-terrestrial TV accounted for 77.2% of viewing in the quarter, compared with 19.9% for fixed-line distributors and 2.9% for satellite.