Major U.S. Pay-TV Providers Shed 25,000 Subs in Q3

DURHAM: The 13 largest multi-channel video providers in the U.S., representing around 94 percent of the market, lost about 25,000 net subscribers in the third quarter, an improvement from the 50,000 lost in Q3 2012, according to Leichtman Research Group.

The top multi-channel video providers account for around 94.5 million subscribers, with the top nine cable companies having about 49.9 million video subscribers, satellite TV companies having 34.2 million subscribers, and top telephone companies having 10.4 million subscribers.

The top nine cable companies lost around 600,000 video subs, the highest rate since Q3 2010. Time Warner Cable's losses of more than 300,000 subs—partially the result of the CBS programming blackout—was the highest quarterly losses ever for any multi-channel video provider. Comcast lost 129,000 subscribers in the quarter, while Charter lost 25,000, Cablevision 37,000, Cable ONE 14,643, Mediacom 23,000 and Suddenlink 3,000.

Satellite TV providers added 174,00 video subscribers in the quarter, compared to the 317,000 additions in the prior year period. The top telephone providers added 400,000 video subs, healthy compared to Q3 2012's 317,000 additions. AT&T U-verse's net additions of 265,000 were the company's highest quarter since Q1 2009 and its second highest ever.

“The multi-channel industry was essentially flat in the third quarter of 2013, with major providers as a whole performing slightly better than in the third quarter of 2012,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group. “Quarterly losses for cable providers were exacerbated by Time Warner Cable’s programming dispute with CBS, but these losses benefited telco and DBS providers with higher subscriber gains than a year ago.”