Global pay-TV market added nearly 47 million subscribers in 2012 reaching a total of 864 million subscribers. “The growth in satellite, cable, and IPTV markets was strong, although digital terrestrial TV growth was flat in 2012. ABI Research expects that the pay-TV market will continue to grow in 2013 to reach 907 million subscribers,” said Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of core forecasting.

The 2013 International CES® will unveil the latest wireless technologies and trends across the mobile connected universe, including advancements in accessories, the cloud, e-books, embedded technology, smartphones and tablets, through a series of keynote addresses, supersessions, conference tracks and TechZones dedicated to future trends in wireless technology. Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) ®, the 2013 CES, the world’s largest annual innovation event, will take place January 8-11, in Las Vegas.

The World Teleport Association released a new white paper, Best Practices in Buying Satellite Antennas and the RF Chain. The latest in the Four-Nines series of reports shares insights from WTA members on the trade-offs between cost and quality, standards-based and proprietary, and investment risk versus revenue opportunity of purchasing antennas and RF equipment. The report is made possible by the financial support of XipLink.

Following the conclusion of the widely applauded GVF Ka Roundtable Assembly 2012: Satellite Service Provision Game-Changer in Action event which took place in London on 5th & 6th December 2012, the satellite industry has now called for a further platform to facilitate extended industry and end-user dialogue about high capacity and high throughput satellite systems, new ground infrastructures, and advanced networking applications.

The World Teleport Association published its annual rankings for the Top Teleport Operators of 2012. The annual ranking provides a unique look into the diverse teleport sector of the global communications industry. For the second year in a row, the teleport operators reported their total spending on satellite capacity. The Top Independent Operators in 2012 spent $830 million on satellite capacity, which represented 40% on average of their annual revenues.

For better or worse – and mostly for better, I think –2012 has been the Year of Spectrum. We have seen a series of amazing announcements about step-changes in the number of megabits we can run through a given amount of satellite spectrum. 

The opportunities for 4K technology - the next step forward in high resolution video - have been much hyped, particularly within the world of broadcast, though beyond digital cinema the appetite for 4K from end users remains limited.  Futuresource expects a number of broadcasters to launch 4K channels as early as 2014 in a webminar held November 28 addressing the realities and the commercial and technological drivers of 4K video technology.

Over 220 million Smart TV sets will be sold worldwide in 2017, up from the 54 million that will be sold in 2012, according to Informa Telecoms & Media’s latest Smart TV device forecasts. 31% of households worldwide will own at least one Smart TV in five years time, according to Informa, with household penetration much higher in North America (63%) and Western Europe (64%).

However, while Smart TV connection rates are rising, they will continue to lag the connection rates of games consoles and media streaming devices (such as Apple TV and Roku).

Consumers in the U.S. and U.K. are changing the way they view TV and video content by increasingly taking control of how, when, and where they view it, according to a new survey released by Accenture.  About half (49 percent) of consumers surveyed in Accenture’s Pulse of Media Consumer Survey are viewing over-the-top (OTT) video through a broadband connection on their TVs (50 percent in the U.S. and 48 percent in the U.K.) in addition to the content they traditionally watch via cable or satellite.

DVB World 2013 will take place from Monday March 11th to Wednesday March 13th in Madrid. The conference and exhibition will take place in a single convenient location at the Melia Madrid Princesa Hotel. For almost 20 years, DVB and its digital TV standards have been at the forefront of digital TV around the world. What technical and social developments can we expect in the near future and what will TV look like beyond DVB's second decade? This question and other timely topics will be addressed over the three day event.