MUMBAI: Europe is in a recession but private TV overall is bucking the trend. Despite negative growth of the EU?s GDP in 2012 of - 0.3 per cent, the 20 leading private TV companies in Europe achieved overall organic growth of 1.9 per cent.

Sky tops the list at 8.5 billion euros in 2012, a 5.4 percent gain, followed by Liberty Global at 7.8 billion euros, a 6.3 per cent gain, and RTL Group, where revenues were up by four per cent to 5.8 billion euros. Canal+, Mediaset, Virgin Media, Sky Italia, ProSiebenSat.1, ITV plc and TF1 also made the top 10.

Pay-TV performs better than ad financed TV: With an overall organic growth rate of 3.7 per cent, Pay-TV groups performed better than the groups mainly financed by advertising as their overall organic revenues decreased by one per cent.

US groups showing better results than EU groups: Groups mainly controlled by US shareholders account for 42.8 per cent of the total and showed a higher organic growth rate (2.9 per cent).

The European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, has analysed a sample list of companies composed of 11 groups mainly functioning as pay-TV operators and 9 groups mainly financed by advertising.

The activities of the pay-TV groups analysed include distribution of TV packages and provision of their own TV premium channels and on-demand audiovisual services (VoD and/or catch-up TV services). They may also include provision of their own TV channels financed by advertising and production activities. Cable groups have also earned revenues as ISPs and as providers of telephony services.

The groups mainly financed by advertising operate free-to-air generalist channels but they have also diversified into the provision of pay or free thematic channels. They also provide on-demand audiovisual services (VoD and/or catch-up TV services) and are generally also involved in sizable production activities.

The pay-TV groups include cable operators and satellite packagers (Sky in UK, Germany and Italy, Vivendi in France and Poland, Prisa in Spain, Zon Multimedia in Portugal). These groups registered overall organic growth of 3.7% in 2012, which indicates that even in a period of recession, European households have not only generally maintained their subscriptions, but have also demonstrated interest for new services (a ?Go? formula providing access everywhere on any device; transactional VoD services). The pay-TV market continues to strengthen. In 2012 Liberty Global consolidated the German company Unity Media Kabel BW, as well as increasing its share in the Belgian company Telenet and has recently announced the take-over of Virgin Media in the UK and Ziggo in The Netherlands. The satellite pay-TV market has also been strengthened in Poland with the recent launch of the NC+ platform, as a result of the agreement between Canal+ Cyfrowy, TVN and iti.