It's time for telcos and IPTV to take center stage in the U.S. pay TV services market, according to Parks Associates, which last week unveiled research that predicts IPTV subscribers will more than double to about 18 million by 2017.
"The era of huge subscriber gains in the U.S. pay TV market is over," Jim O'Neill, a Parks Associates research analyst, said in a news release. "Cable TV providers are losing subscribers to IPTV services from AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink. Satellite providers also will experience subscriber loss as telcos continue to expand fiber footprints, leverage pricing on triple- and quad-play bundles, and offer advanced TV Everywhere products. Going forward, subscriber retention will become the focus for cable and satellite providers."
Market-share wise, cable will still rule the roost in five years, but it will only have about 52 percent of the marketplace as its subscriptions fall from 2011's total of 60.7 million to about 56.1 million. Satellite will still be in second place, controlling about 30 percent of the market. And IPTV will climb to about an 18 percent market share as its subscriber totals climb from 8.8 million in 2011 to 18.6 million in 2017.
Parks was also careful to note that the larger cable operators such as Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable "are already adjusting their messaging and packages to emphasize their high-speed services," rather than video.
And this, too, is an area worth watching, said Stuart Sikes, president of Parks Associates, in the news release.
"Experiments in high-speed broadband will spawn the next wave of advanced Internet services, including new streaming and cloud-based video services," he said.
From the article, "Parks Associates sees IPTV more than doubling by 2017" by Jim Barthold.
