Top U.S. Pay Providers Lost 6 Million Customers in 2020

The latest informitv Multiscreen Index indicates that the top ten television service providers in the U.S. shed almost 6 million customers in 2020, more than 1.25 million in the fourth quarter alone.

The 2020 loss of 5.98 million is only slightly below the 2019 customer loss of 6.08 million. In Q4, all but one of the top ten providers lost customers; only Sling TV showed a gain of 10,000 subs. For the full year, meanwhile, Charter Communications was the only platform that didn’t report a net loss in TV customers.

Comcast shed about 227,000 customers in Q4 and 1.3 million in the year to reach 18.9 million. At AT&T the losses were more severe—616,000 in Q4 and 2.9 million across the year. It ended 2020 with 16.5 million customers. DISH Network ended 2020 with 8.8 million subs after losing 574,000 in the year. Verizon Fios’s base fell to 3.85 million, losing 298,000 in 2020. Across Altice USA, Frontier and Mediacom, informitv Multiscreen Index tallies a loss of 460,000 customers.

“2020 saw a further fall in the number of television subscribers in the United States,” observed Dr William Cooper, the editor of the informitv Multiscreen Index. “The top ten services in our index lost 7.8 percent of their customer base in 2020, compared to 7.3 percent the previous year. They now have just over 70 million television customers between them, which is just under 60 percent of television homes in the United States.”