Half of Mexican homes with no access to cable TV

Half of Mexico's homes don’t have access to pay-TV, especially in the State of Mexico, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Puebla, Veracruz, and Guerrero , where over 50% of people lack this service.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) , 61.6% of homes in Oaxaca don’t have restricted TV services, while in the State of Mexico, the proportion is of 61.1% , and of 60.1% in Puebla.

On the other hand, there are entities where the number grows considerably smaller, such as Campeche , where only 26.4% of homes lack pay-TV, or Baja California , where the proportion is of 30%.

Jorge Bravo

, an analyst at Media Telecom Policy and Law , explained that the pay-TV service reproduces the digital gap that exists in the country; the states with a limited penetration of other phone or broadband services also lack cable television.

“However, this service is often found In low-income areas given that these places often lack access to public television channels,” he added.

“In order to increase access to cable television in Mexico, the entry of one or two new competitors in the market is required, which will consequently bring tariff reductions,” Bravo stated.

Recent estimates of the Latin-American Multichannel Advertising Council (LAMAC) indicate that, following the penetration reached in 2015 through a massive blackout, the number of homes with cable television will continue to decrease.

56%

of homes had this service in 2016 , which was cut down to 51.6% last year. LAMAC expects it to reach 50.5% at the end of the year.

“It is known that, due to financial reasons such as economic crises and inflation, one of the first services to be canceled is always cable television; this usually doesn’t happen with broadband,” Bravo commented.

The analyst mentioned that most users haven’t given up cable television services yet, in spite of the recent increase in the use of alternative services, such as streaming websites or online pay-TV services such as Netflix, ClaroVideo, or Blim.

Mexico is one of the countries with the lowest number of homes that have cable television services in Latin-America. In Argentina, 81.6% of homes use pay TV services; 74.5% in Chile ; 87.5% in Colombia , and around 78.2% in Central America . Brasil appears to be the lowest, with a proportion of 46.8%.

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