Pay-TV providers lost almost 800,000 subscribers in 2016

A Leichtman Research Group (LRG) study found that in 2016 the country’s largest traditional pay-TV providers, including the largest cable and telephone companies, lost more than 795,000 subscribers.

Frontier lost more than 250,000 pay-TV subscribers, while Verizon gained 59,000 subscribers through its FiOS service. The cable companies also lost pay-TV subscriptions: Charter lost 180,000 and Altice lost 111,000. Comcast gained 161,000 subscribers.

The total net loss of pay-TV subscribers remained below 800,000 thanks to satellite and Internet-delivered services. DirecTV gained 1.2 million pay-TV subscribers, while Sling TV and DirecTV Now added more than 800,000 new subscriptions. DirecTV’s 1.2 million new subscriptions and DirecTV Now’s 200,000 new subscriptions together off-set the 1.4 million lost U-verse subscriptions that AT&T reported.

“The pay-TV market has seen significant change in the past two years, with the introduction of Internet-delivered services, and share shifts among traditional providers that are driven as much by providers' decisions as by changes in consumer demand,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group. “When analyzing the pay-TV market, it is now essential to include Internet-delivered services as part of the industry, just as it was important to include satellite and Telco services when those new forms of delivery were introduced.”

LRG’s breakdown of the study:

Link:

Major Pay-TV Providers Lost about 795,000 subscribers in 2016 (Leichtman Research Group, Mar. 16, 2017)