Nordics ahead of rest of Europe on pay TV ARPU and OTT adoption

The average revenue per user for pay TV in the Nordics is at record levels, a new report claims.

According to new figures from research firm Dataxis, pay TV subscribers in the region are generating an ARPU of €40 per month, putting it far ahead of other countries in Central and Western Europe.

The region is somewhat unique for the fact that free-to-air reception only gives access to a small number of channels. Denmark, for example, only offers eight channels available for free. By contrast, the UK’s FTA network Freeview offers more than 100 channels.

This all means that the majority of TV-viewing households across the Nordic region will have at least some form of pay TV subscription. IPTV and OTT account for the majority of pay TV services throughout the whole Nordic region.

OTT services are most prominent in Finland, with the long-term existence of well developed platforms like Ruutu, Elisa Viihde, DPlay and C More. Finland however has a lower penetration of fixed broadband compared to its neighbours, but does have a very high level of mobile connections, leading to a more favourable climate for OTT development.

But outside of Finland, the research notes that the Nordic region is ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to streaming services consumption and access to pay TV OTT offers. This is noted by the fact that there are more streaming service subscriptions than households throughout the entire region.

The firm concludes:  According to our estimates, OTT pay TV services are five times more developed in the Nordics than in the rest of Europe.”