Last year’s economic crisis put the brakes on the expansion of pay-TV services into Russian regions.
However, according to data produced by J’son & Partners Consulting and published by Cableman, the number of pay-TV subscribers as a whole grew by almost 21% to 14.5 million. What is more, this is expected to rise to 22.5 million by 2014.
Some 36% of pay-TV subscribers received digital services at the end of 2009, compared to 30% a year earlier.
One of the main engines for growth was the DTH platform Tricolor TV, which saw its subscriber base grow from 4.3 million to 6.2 million in 2009. Of the latter, 4.2 million received pay-TV services.