US cord cutting clips 7% of pay subs in 2019
February 20, 2020
MoffettNathanson reports that pay-TV subscribers in the US fell by another 7 per cent (6 million) year-on-year in 2019, with Q4 alone seeing 1.5 million homes cut the cord.
AT&T was the biggest loser in Q4, dropping 1.16 million subscribers. Comcast fell 149,000 while Charter lost 101,000 subscribers. From a high in 2009, when pay-TV penetration was at 87.8 per cent, this figure now stands at 65.3 per cent of US homes.
“Operators across the pay-TV distribution map are reassessing video strategies, and they are universally shifting, albeit to varying degrees, towards strategies that accommodate, or even encourage, cord-cutting. As video distributors change their pricing and marketing strategies, the media industry is finally facing that long-feared moment of accelerating cord-cutting,” said the analyst firm.