The Middle East and North African region is starting to fulfil some of its long-held potential with a current digital television penetration rate of 56.2%, predicted to increase to 67.7% by 2010.
According to Informa Telecoms & Media’s new
Middle East and North Africa TV report, out of the region’s 52.5 million television homes, 29.5 million have a multichannel television service, forecast to rise to 41 million over the next five years.
Commenting on the report, Alan Thomas, Informa’s media research manager and author of the report said: “There is a general trend in the Middle East towards market liberation, which is helping the broadcast sector. Added to this are several other positive factors, such as the common language for most of the region and its relative wealth, driven by oil revenues.”
In 2004, television advertising revenues were worth $1.9 billion across the region and the report forecasts they will increase to $3 billion by 2010. According to Thomas: “Advertising revenues will show modest consistent growth over the next few years. I’m expecting to see the launch of more private terrestrial channels, to add even more dynamism to the sector.”
While most multichannel homes in the Middle East and North African region watch free-to-air channels, by 2010 the regional total of pay television homes is forecast to increase to 6.7 million, giving an 11.1% pay TV penetration rate.
Informa predicts that much of the growth will come from Israel and Turkey, estimated to account for 5.5 million pay homes between them at the end of 2010.
One of the factors inhibiting greater growth is shown to be the disparity, across much of the Middle East and North African region, between the disposable income of a wealthy minority and the rest of the population. As a consequence, pay TV operators can only sell to a relatively small proportion of wealthy locals, while also catering for a sizeable expatriate community.
Elsewhere, penetration of digital television in Asia is predicted to rise over the next several years, reaching 28.8 million by 2005, according to high tech research firm, In-Stat (see Increase In Digital TV Growth Predicted For Asia).
An earlier report from Informa Telecoms & Media forecast digital television penetration in the UK to increase to 66% by the end of 2005 (see UK Leads The Way In Digital Penetration).
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