A Rapid TV News ‘Round Table' talked about the Middle East's DVB pay-TV players suffering piracy of 60%. The multiples of millions of Dollars being lost per month also contribute to preventing opertors from selling content effectively.

James Field, Director of Technology/New Initiatives, NDS Ltd, agreed. "The ability [for operators] to differentiate their products and services in an increasingly complicated media landscape that our customers are dealing with, and they need to be able to package and sell their products in as many different ways as possible. Let's not forget, Pay Television is no get-rich-quick scheme. It's a long-term return on investment so you need to make sure there's a security guarantee or solution that can take you forward in profitability."

Andy Mathieson, a director at software CA suppliers Latens, said that in some markets, however, CA adopted a somewhat different role. I think in some markets it's definitely seen as the necessary evil: the burglar alarm that your insurance company told you had to buy, and in the IPTV markets in particular in some sectors, that's how it's perceived. But in other sectors, [especially] cable and satellite pay-TV operators recognise that it's a business enabler. It's the operators that we are really protecting the revenues of, and you only have to look at the piracy figures in all sorts of parts of the world. I recently saw suggestions that in the Middle East, in the DVB world, there was over 60% piracy.

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RapidTVNews reports that an Informa Media study shows that the pay-TV market in the Middle East and North Africa will grow by 36% over the next 5 years. The region had 4.5million pay-TV subs at the end of last year, and will grow to 6.1m by 2012.

Informa says the Gulf States (including Saudi Arabia) will grow from today’s 629,000 subs to 849,000 by 2012. North Africa, including Egypt, will grow from today’s 546,000 to 804,000 in 2012.

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