News Broadcasting
IPTV service revenue to hit $44 billion mark by 2009: Study
MUMBAI: IPTV service revenue, subscribers, and capital expenditures are increasing rapidly, says a new report by analyst firm Infonetics Research, the US-based international market research and consulting firm specialising in data networking and telecom.
Worldwide IPTV service revenue will skyrocket to over $44 billion in 2009, according to the report. DSL providers account for the bulk of service revenue now, but cable broadband providers will also migrate to all-IP triple-play services in the next few years, possibly offering wireless services as well.
Service providers anticipate big payoffs from IPTV, judging from the significant investments they are making. In 2004, service providers worldwide spent $304 million on IPTV-related services infrastructure, growing to almost $4.5 billion in 2009 as providers look to IPTV services as the means of raising ARPU from a near-saturated broadband subscriber base, states an official release.
“Service providers have been investing in IP DSLAMs, broadband edge routers, and aggregation switches to prepare for IPTV in the network infrastructure layer, but, are having to make significant investments in the services layer too, adding video on demand servers, encoders, and headend equipment as well,” Infonetics Research analyst and lead author of the report, Richard Webb, said. “But the biggest decision they face right now is who to choose as a middleware partner.”
IPTV subscribers are increasing briskly as well, topping 53 million worldwide in 2009. Subscriber growth is strong in all regions, especially in Asia Pacific, where faster forms of DSL like VDSL and ADSL2/2+ are stimulating subscriber growth.
“Service providers in Asia Pacific and EMEA, especially PCCW in Hong Kong and FastWeb in Italy, and independent operators in North America like SureWest, are already experiencing significant IPTV subscriber growth,” directing analyst for broadband and IPTV at Infonetics Research, Jeff Heynen, noted.
“We expect SBC, Verizon, BT, and other large providers to successfully conquer the technical and marketing hurdles before them, and when they do, their IPTV subscriber figures will increase substantially year-over-year.”
Growth Highlights
Worldwide IPTV service revenue will grow to over $44 billion in 2009.
IPTV services infrastructure capex will grow 1,377 per cent, from $304 million to close to $4.5 billion.
The number of IPTV subscribers worldwide will grow to 53.7 million in 2009.
The number of IPTV subscribers in North America will increase 12,985 per cent between 2004 and 2009.
Infonetics’ report analyses the fundamental drivers, growth areas, and technologies gaining the most traction in the market, tracking IPTV service infrastructure capex, IPTV service revenue, and IPTV subscribers. The report includes worldwide and regional market size, analysis, and revenue, capex, and subscriber forecasts through 2009 for North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, CALA, and worldwide.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
