Digital TV Research’s “North America OTT TV & Video Forecasts” report is predicting that OTT TV and video revenues in Canada and the U.S. will reach $24.39 billion in 2021. That’s up from $2.67 billion in 2010 and $15.39 billion in 2015, according to the company’s analysis.
The research firm points to the North American SVOD sector as by far the most mature in the world, with 81.81 million SVOD subscribers (for movie and TV services only – excluding sports, for example) by end-2015. The SVOD total is forecast to climb to 109.59 million by 2021.
“It is important to stress that these figures are gross — some homes take more than one SVOD platform — especially in the U.S.,” Simon Murray, report author and principal analyst at Digital TV Research, explains. “We do not believe that 86 percent of U.S. TV households or even 97 percent of U.S. fixed broadband households will be SVOD subscribers by 2021. From the 101 million U.S. total in 2021, we forecast that 25 million will be secondary SVOD subscriptions.”
So, the average U.S. SVOD user will pay for 1.33 subscriptions, he says.
“Putting it another way, there will be 76 million U.S. primary SVOD users by 2021,” Murray concludes.
He also points out that the research includes half of the Amazon Prime fee as an SVOD subscription to homes that the research firm estimates take Amazon Video (about 70 percent), even though homes are not directly paying for Amazon Video.
The report has Canadian and U.S. SVOD revenues rising from $0.58 billion in 2010 to $6.26 billion in 2015 and onto $9.16 billion in 2021. Advertising on OTT sites will become the main OTT revenue source in 2018 as the SVOD sector matures, the report predicts. Advertising on OTT sites reportedly generated revenues of $5.65 billion in 2015 — quintuple the $1.11 billion in 2010. Digital TV Research foresees the growth rapidly continuing, with a predicted total of $10.98 billion in 2021.
