NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Pay TV subscriptions in the country remain on a downward decline, with the largest decrease seen in the past year.
According to data included in the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) 2021 Annual Report and 2022 Annual Plan, there has been a steady decline in pay-tv subscribers over the past five years – with a nearly 11 percent decrease in from 2021 to 2021.
According to the regulator, pay-TV subscribers peaked at 76,278 in 2017 and dropped to 55,534 subscribers in 2021.
“CBL retains the position as the leading provider for Pay TV services in The Bahamas, notwithstanding BTC’s challenge commenced in 2016 with its provision of FLOW TV services to selected islands. CBL continues to offer Pay TV nationwide.
It continued: “But despite competition entering the market for this service, the data shows that subscriptions continue to decline for the past five years. The trend indicates that this service has been on a downward trend prior to Covid-19. However, the largest decrease has been in the last year with the subscription rate showing an almost 11 percent decrease from 2020 to 2021.”
The regulator also noted that mobile voice subscribers showed an increase in 2017-2019, followed by a notable decrease in 2020.
“Cellular/mobile voice and data services in The Bahamas are provided by Aliv and BTC,” the report read.
“BTC is the initiator of mobile services and is designated by URCA as having SMP within the domestic mobile telephone market. As seen in figure four below, mobile voice subscribers showed an increase from 2017-2019 followed by a notable decrease in 2020 from 425,507 subscribers to 403,924 subscribers, which may be attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by smaller decrease in 2021 to land at 397,393 subscribers.
“Simultaneously, mobile voice penetration for 2021 vs 2020 fell by 2.7 percent from 103.7 to 101 mobile voice subscriptions for every 100 persons,” URCA added.
