Telco Gains Help Offset U.S. TV Subscriber Losses

LONDON: The latest Multiscreen Index from informitv shows that gains by telco providers in the U.S. helped to offset the subscriber losses among leading cable and satellite TV services.

There was a net loss of 45,000 digital TV homes in the third quarter across the ten leading services in the country included in the Multiscreen Index. In the larger context, it only represents a loss of 0.05 percent of their subscriber base. The total number of TV customers among these ten services has fallen slightly over the last two quarters, though the base has actually increased by around a quarter of a million over 12 months and by over a half a million over two years.

AT&T and Verizon gained 328,000 television customers between them in the third quarter, with U-verse expanding by 214,000 and FiOS adding 114,000. Comcast and Time Warner together lost 265,000 digital television subscribers over the quarter, while Charter, Cablevision, Mediacom and Suddenlink collectively declined by 68,000. DIRECTV lost 28,000 subscribers in the U.S. and Dish Network fell by 12,000, compared to gains of 139,000 and 35,000, respectively, for the same quarter a year previously. In the same quarter Netflix gained another 1.18 million paid members in the U.S., taking its total to 36.27 million, but this appears to have had little effect on overall TV subscriptions.

“There is increasing competition for customers in America,” said Dr. William Cooper, the editor of the informitv Multiscreen Index. “The leading telcos continue to gain ground, while cable companies in particular are still suffering heavy subscriber losses. The total figures do not demonstrate a mass defection from the pay-television proposition but show that incumbent service providers cannot afford to be complacent.”