A. Guttmann
Research Lead covering media
Pay TV in Argentina - statistics & facts
Argentina held the highest pay TV penetration rate in Latin America at the end of 2020. More than three-fourths – 77 percent – of households in the Andean country had access to this type of service. The segment apparently trended up throughout the second half of the 2010s. Between 2015 and 2020, the pay TV revenue in Argentina grew by 7.5 percent, reaching nearly 38.8 billion Argentine pesos in the latter year. But the increase may have occurred in local currency only. This is because Argentina struggles with one of the highest inflation rates worldwide, an enduring challenge to its economy.
Goodbye, AT&T; hello, Grupo Werthein
Cablevisión and DirecTV collectively concentrated 70 percent of all household pay TV subscriptions in Argentina in the fourth quarter of 2020. Telecom Argentina owns Cablevisión and eventually changed the brand's name to Flow. Part of the company belongs to Fintech Advisory, founded by Mexican investor David Martínez Guzmán. CableVisión Holding – owned by Grupo Clarín S.A. – controls 39 percent of Telecom Argentina. Meanwhile, Vrio Corp. runs the Latin American operations of DirecTV. Vrio used to belong to AT&T, but not anymore. In November 2021, it was announced that Buenos Aires-based Grupo Werthein acquired Vrio for 500 million U.S. dollars, besides a 4.56-billion-dollar write-off for AT&T. Thus, the Argentine pay TV market started 2022 more domestically run than in previous years.Regional differences in pay TV penetration
The number of pay TV subscribers in Argentina is projected to continue to grow. It was forecast that the figure would increase by 3.4 percent between 2021 and 2026, reaching 8.55 million in the latter year. However, the presence of this service across the Argentine territory is not homogenous. In provinces like Córdoba and Terra del Fuego, the household pay TV penetration rate surpassed 80 percent in mid-2021. On the other hand, it stood below 20 percent in Mendoza, La Rioja, and San Juan. The discrepancy indicates that there is still room for growth. And subscribing viewers have a high demand for journalistic content. In October 2021, the three most-watched pay TV channels in Argentina focused on news. They were TN (owned by Clarín), C5N (run by Grupo Indalo), and LN+, which is controlled by one of the country's main newspapers, La Nación.
