In fewer than three years, the pay-TV subscriber base will have declined to 53 million U.S. households, as cord cutting continues to hack at the traditional TV business.
The latest research from Parks Associates estimates that between 2014 and 2020, the US pay-TV industry lost over 18 million subscribers, while the broadband market accelerated, with 40% of domestic broadband households receiving a standalone service. In 2020, over seven million households dropped their pay-TV services.
In 2020, over seven million households dropped their pay-TV services.
In the U.S. market, vMVPDs such as YouTube and FuboTV represented the only segment of the pay-TV space to experience growth during the pandemic. Its subscriber base will increase to over 23 million by 2024.
What Is Working for Pay TV?
Cable companies in the U.S have had some success in encouraging new bundling by launching Wi-Fi-first MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) services, primarily running on Verizon’s network, reports Parks. The largest MVNOs are Comcast Xfinity Mobile, Spectrum Mobile, or Altice Mobile.
Industry analyst Brett Sappington, who leads the video and entertainment research practice at global insights firm Interpret, chats about the evolution of streaming and its impact on the pay-TV model on the Light Reading podcast with senior editor Jeff Baumgartner.
“Before you would ever get to a subscriber floor, I think [the pay-TV industry] fundamentally has to change… to make the economics work,” Sappington comments. “We’re really looking at a pretty significant shift in how pay-TV works in the next few years just to make the economics work out.”
Listen to the full conversation in the audio player below:
The report also found that US households are upgrading their broadband connections in order to work from home and stream more entertainment content.
“Fast, reliable uplink speeds are of key importance to subscribers – and impact competitiveness and deployment trends. With continuing remote work, growing adoption of cloud gaming services, and many consumers more comfortable using video conferencing and video calling to communicate, the importance of uplink will remain elevated compared to 2019 and earlier,” said Paul Erickson, Senior Analyst.