GENEVA, Nov 22 — Marking World Television Day, November 21, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released a report on the status of TV around the world.

Reporting on data collected at the end of 2012, the ITU finds that 1.4 billion households worldwide have at least one TV.

In developed countries, nearly every household (98 per cent) has at least one TV set, while the figure falls to 72 per cent in most developing nations, and to just 30 per cent across Africa.

The ITU also revealed that analogue broadcasting has not yet disappeared, although over half of households with TVs (55 per cent) receive their content via digital television signal.

In developed nations, 81 per cent of TV-equipped households use the technology, compared with 42 per cent of households in developing nations. The latter figure, while it may seem low, has nonetheless tripled since 2008.

Of households with TV, 728 million subscribe to pay TV, the equivalent of 53 per cent of TV-owning households. Over the past four years, pay-TV subscriptions have increased by 32 per cent.

Pay TV has had the highest growth rate in recent years. Subscriptions to IPTV services, which provide TV content over an ADSL connection, nearly quadrupled from 2008 to 2012.

In spite of the growth rate, however, just 5 per cent of households have pay TV. — AFP/Relaxnews