Monday June 7, 2010 – Myra Moore
Now that the U.S. analog terrestrial TV shut off is a distant memory, conventional wisdom suggests that the market for ATSC set-top boxes (STBs) will dry up. After all, DTC’s research shows that an estimated 21.6 million ATSC STBs shipped in 2009 (more than 15 million were digital-to-analog converter boxes) and we anticipate shipments will plummet to about 8.2 million this year.
The U.S. DtA converter-box market was an anomaly – an almost-forced purchase (backed up with a government subsidy) to accommodate a one-time event. In other words, it made possible a weird and meteoric growth spike that would leave any statistician scratching his head. In the future, digital terrestrial TV receivers found in STBs will mostly be coupled with other receiver types, such as IPTV or satellite. The 8.2 million ATSC STBs forecasted to ship this year will be made up mostly of hybrid STBs – DTH satellite and IPTV with hybrid ATSC/IPTV boxes are anticipated to account for the most growth in 2011. If there is a growth area for DTT STBs, it is as added receivers in over-the-top boxes designed to bring in video programming from select web sites.
Coupling local and national over-the-air programming with Internet-delivered programming makes an Internet STB purchase more appealing, especially if the OTA programming comes without a fee.
STB suppliers clearly aren’t going to sustain their businesses by selling single-purpose converter boxes in ATSC-adopting countries about to shut off their analog transmissions. With the U.S. shut off complete (with the exception of low-power TV stations), only Canada, South Korea, Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras remain. Canada is scheduled for 2011 and South Korea in 2013 with the remaining countries with much later shut-off dates planned. The rest of the world that has adopted a transmission standard has adopted the DVB-T or ISDB-T standards.
STB shipments may not fly as high they did during the U.S. analog shut off, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t’ have a future.
Source: DTC
