West European OTT services such as britbox, maxdome and Viaplay are likely to partner with new global platforms, according to Simon Murray, principal analyst, Digital TV Research.
Speaking at the Connected TV World Summit in London, he added that these new global platforms – Disney+, Warner Media, Apple TV+, NBCUniversal and Viacom – will to a large degree not try to emulate Netflix despite reports to the contrary.
Looking at the UK SVOD market, quoting BARB research, Murray said the number of subscriptions per SVOD home has gradually been increasing and reached 1.40 in Q4 2018. However, this was still considerably less than the US, where the figure already exceeds 2.
Meanwhile, Digital TV Research forecasts the number of SVOD subscriptions in the UK to reach 26,432,000 in 2023. This compares to 19,009,000 in Germany, 10,385,000 in France, 8,809,000 in Italy and 7,907,000 in Spain.
Meanwhile, OTT TV and video revenues in the UK will reach $6,797,000 million in the UK, $3,815,000 in Germany, $2,710,000 in France, $1,999,000 in Italy and $1,498 million in Spain.
SVOD will remain the most lucrative source of revenue in Western Europe, claiming $12,472,000 in 2023. It will be followed by AVOD ($6,941 million), DTO ($2,160 million) and Rental ($1,449 million).
Importantly, there will be a huge revenue shift in pay-TV compared to OTT platforms in Western Europe in the next few years.
While pay-TV revenues will gradually decline from $28,889,000 this year to $27,274,000 in 2023, those for OTT will rise from $14,792,000 to $23,022,000 over the same period.
