Top U.S. Pay-TV Operators Post Quarterly Loss of 20,000 Subs

LONDON: The ten leading pay-TV operators in the U.S. collectively lost 20,600 subscribers in the latest quarter, which is an improvement from the loss of 45,000 in the previous quarter.

The informitv Multiscreen Index shows that over the year, the operators gained 82,200 subscribers, bringing their combined total to 87.67 million. The cable operators collectively lost over 800,000 digital television subscribers in 2014, while the telcos gained 865,000.

DIRECTV added 149,000 subs in the U.S. in the last quarter, gaining 99,000 over the year. Dish Network lost 79,000 during 2014. AT&T sold its Connecticut wireline operations to Frontier, including around 197,000 U-verse TV subscribers, but net additions of 73,000 subs left it with 125,000 fewer than the previous quarter. Verizon gained 116,000 FiOS television subscribers in the last three months of 2014. Comcast gained 7,000 digital TV subscribers in the last quarter, but lost 194,000 over the course of the year. Time Warner Cable lost 38,000 in the quarter and 408,000 over the year. Charter, Cablevision, Mediacom and Suddenlink collectively declined by 200,800 in 2014. In the same quarter, Netflix gained another 1.43 million paid members in the U.S., taking its total to 39.79 million.

“With intense competition in the American market, the telcos are continuing to gain television customers at the expense of cable companies,” said Dr. William Cooper, the editor of the informitv Multiscreen Index. “Although the total number of subscribers has remained relatively static, customer churn means that the larger operators have to sign up a couple of million new customers between them every quarter just to maintain their figures.”