TDG: U.S. Legacy Pay-TV Services to Lose 26 Percent of Subs by 2030

The Diffusion Group (TDG) is predicting that the penetration of live multichannel pay-TV services will decline from 85 percent of U.S. households in 2017 to 79 percent in 2030, as virtual MVPDs disrupt the marketplace.

TDG’s The Rise of the Virtual Pay-TV Provider: Analysis & Forecasts is forecasting that overall, 30 million U.S. households will live without an MVPD service of any kind, whether virtual or legacy, by 2030.

During this time, legacy MVPDs are poised to experience considerable subscriber losses, due not only to long-term industry trends but also growing competition from virtual pay-TV providers. Consequently, legacy pay-TV penetration will fall from 81 percent of U.S. households in 2017 to 60 percent in 2030, a decline of 26 percent. At the same time, virtual pay-TV penetration will grow from around 4 percent of U.S. households to 14 percent—up 350 percent but from a small base.

“TDG said early on that the future of TV was an app. Unfortunately, most incumbent MVPDs weren’t taking notes,” said Joel Espelien, TDG’s senior analyst. “The question is no longer if the future of TV is an app, but how quickly and economically incumbents can adapt to this truth and transition to an all-broadband app-based live multichannel system.”