The first quarter of 2020 has seen a bloodbath in the realm of traditional cable and satellite TV.
Cable providers, reporting their earnings from January through March, have posted their biggest quarterly subscriber losses to date. That’s even before the coronavirus pandemic has had a real impact on their business, losses that will be felt in the second quarter of 2020 reports.
A combination of high prices, record unemployment, and the loss of live sports has led to an overall drop of 1.8 million pay-TV subscribers – translating to an annual rate of decline of 7.6% according to Wall Street analyst firm MoffettNathanson.
Traditional pay TV penetration is now at just 63% of occupied households, the lowest in the United States since 1995. AT&T lost the lions share with 1 million TV subscribers dropping off (mostly from DirecTV), Dish Network meanwhile fell 413,000.
And in telling results, virtual pay-TV players also saw big losses as even skinny bundles have lost their appeal to fully on demand VOD and SVOD services. AT&T TV Now, Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and FuboTV collectively lost an estimated 341,000 subscribers in Q1 2020.
Source: Variety
