Global household access to television technology, 2012

With 801 million households, Asia Pacific has multiple methods of household access to television, including cable, 45 percent; terrestrial, 33 percent; satellite, 19 percent; and IPTV, 3 percent. Europe is the second largest television region, with 282 million households, and an almost equal distribution of household penetration for cable, satellite and terrestrial. Cable dominates TV access for North America, with more than half of households subscribing, while one-third choose satellite, especially in outlying regions. Latin America, the Middle East and Africa are almost evenly split between satellite and terrestrial television access, by household, according to IDATE in 2012.

Digital and Pay TV, including pay-per-view and subscription-based television, are most popular in North America, with about 89 percent of households paying for TV, while digital TV is also popular in Europe, followed by Pay TV at 60 percent.

Comparatively, digital TV is less popular in households in Latin America (55 percent), the Middle East and Africa (46 percent) and Asia Pacific (40 percent). Pay TV is more popular in Asia Pacific and Europe, with 56 percent and 60 percent of households counted, respectively, while Pay TV is less popular in Latin America and the Middle East and Africa, with 34 percent and 20 percent household penetration, respectively, according to IDATE in 2012.

The data set is a part of a collection of 500 revenue and usership trends in mobile, social, Internet, tablet, video and other digital categories, published in the 200-page Global Digital Media Trendbook 2013. GDMT, in its eight year, is to be published by World Newsmedia Network, a not-for-profit media research company, in September 2013. To subscribe to the PDF report and/or the tablet edition, go to www.wnmn.org, or contact mstone@wnmn.org.