40% of Spanish households now have Pay TV

Four in ten Spanish homes now enjoy Pay TV, and that ratio is likely to rise as more services are added.

The juggernaut success of streaming TV platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Fire TV has been keenly felt in Spain, where new research shows that nearly 40 per cent of households now have some form of pay-to-view TV.

The data includes more traditional satellite and cable services such as Sky and Canal+, but also reveals the changing TV habits of the country.

Terrestrial Spanish TV has never exactly been renowned for its quality programming, and so it should not come as a huge surprise that Spaniards – who at one time were the world’s keenest illegal downloaders of films and music – should have jumped at the chance to enjoy and consume something a little better than the standard Spanish fare.

And many are willing to pay for it this time around. According to a survey by Ontsi, the Spanish Telecommunications Observatory, the average monthly outlay for Spanish homes that enjoy Pay TV is €22.30, which given that Netflix comes in at below €10, suggests that some households are either treating themselves to more than one streaming platform, or have opted for some of the bulkier packages offered by satellite and cable providers.

The data also showed that one third of Spanish homes enjoy the complete package of broadband internet, pay TV, fixed landline and mobile phone contract, which again suggests that Spaniards are catching up with their northern European cousins in the digitalisation stakes.

Homes that have-it-all pay an average of €68.20 per month for the privilege, which is actually rather good value for money when one considers everything that is included in such a package.

Netflix was launched in Spain last year and has proven quite a success in the country, as it has in all other European markets in which it is available.