More than 38 million households in sub-Sahara Africa - 25% of its population - now has a TV set in the home with that number set to rise to 30%, or almost a third, by 2017 according to a new Digital TV report expecting South Africa to reach 100% digital television migration by 2017.
By 2017 South Africa will have a collective 15% of all of these TV households with Nigeria comprising 25%. While 75% are still receiving their TV signals as analogue broadcasts (at the end of 2011) this will drop to a remarkable 46% over the course of the next 5 years as digital terrestrial television (DTT) sweeps across Africa.
''Governments are opening up to investment, which involves several pioneering foreign TV players. Populations are growing fast and incomes per capita are on the rise, creating a burgeoning number of middle class consumers,'' says Simon Murray who wrote the report.
Meanwhile South Africa - according to the report - is expected to reach 100% digital migration by 2017 for the 7,9 million TV households (The South African government's inadequate and as-yet-unadjusted official target for DTT completion is December 2013).
The report says South Africa's digital switch-over saturation is unlikely to be achieved soon by other sub-Saharan countries.
According to the report, pay TV in sub-Saharan Africa is set to continue to growth massively. While 7,2 million Sub-Saharan TV households were pay TV subscribers at the end of 2011, this will double to 14,1 million within the next five years as pay TV services are added and extended through DTT capability.
South Africa is expected to have 4,7 million pay TV subscribers by 2017 (8,2 million in sub-Saharan Africa) as South Africa leads the pay TV growth charge.
