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Pay-TV reaches 21 percent of TV households in East African community
Pay-TV has reached 21 percent of TV households in East African community, a region that consists of five member countries,…
Pay-TV has reached 21 percent of TV households in East African community, a region that consists of five member countries, namely; Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania & Uganda.
The five countries of the East African Community (EAC) had a total population of 146.89 million end-2014, with 33.61 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 23 percent.
Kenya is the most developed market in the region with 12.04 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 32 percent. Uganda has 7.35 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 25 percent, followed by Tanzania with 9.8 million households and a TV household penetration rate of 17 percent.
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Pay-TV/ FTA Broadcasting in East African Community highlights that Pay-TV services accounted for approximately 1.61 million households end-2014, meaning that free-to-air (FTA) broadcasting is still the primary access method in over 79 percent of TV households.
Tanzania had the largest Pay-TV base in the region with 592,700 users end-2014, accounting for 36% of the EAC total. Kenya was second with 561,000 users, followed by Uganda with 359,000, Burundi with 62,500 and Rwanda with 38,000.
According to research y Dataxis, DTT had an overall 53 percent market share of total Pay-TV users, followed by DTH with 43 percent and the remainder on CATV systems in Kenya and Tanzania. StarTimes edged MultiChoice in terms of overall market share with 39 percent against 38 percent.
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The largest single platform was StarTimes DTT with 34 percent market share, followed by the MultiChoice DSTV satellite offering (20 percent) and its GOtv DTT service (18 percent). StarSat, the StarTimes DTH offering, accounted for a further 4 percent.
Analogue terrestrial was by far the largest access method for the 6.16 million FTA users across the EAC end-2014 accounting for 68 percent of total users.
DTT had a 26 percent market share, followed by DTH with 6 percent. Rwanda was the only country to have completely turned off analogue end-2014, followed by Tanzania in February, 2015, and Kenya in March.