Thursday, November 16, 2023

Pay TV services shrink, except for YouTube TV

A recent report shows that despite traditional pay TV services -- cable and satellite -- are losing customers, YouTube TV continues to get more customers. Not only that, the rate of growth of YouTube TV, combined with the traditional services shrinking, means that YouTube TV will soon be the 4th largest pay TV service.

A report this past Spring from Leichtman Research Group says cable TV customers such as Comcast and Spectrum lost over 2-million customers in the first quarter of the year alone. A recent report shows that traditional pay TV services dropped 2-million in the second and third quarters combined.

Top cable providers had a net loss of about 1,015,000 video subscribers in 3Q 2023 – compared to a loss of about 985,000 subscribers in 3Q 2022

Other traditional pay-TV services had a net loss of about 780,000 subscribers in 3Q 2023 – compared to a loss of about 700,000 subscribers in 3Q 2022

Top vMVPDs added about 1,325,000 subscribers in 3Q 2023 – compared to a gain of about 1,300,000 subscribers in 3Q 2022

Combine that with the information that showed YouTube TV growing by 600,000 in the third quarter, and that streaming service is on track to be the fourth largest pay TV provider. It is already the fifth largest, according to Cord Cutters News.

YouTube TV now reportedly has about 6,500,000 TV customers. This would put it in 5th place, just behind DISH, which has 6,720,000 subscribers. Comcast is still in first place with 14,495,000, followed by Spectrum at 14,379,000 and DIRECTV with 11,850,000.

At this rate of growth and with DISH’s recent declines in subscribers it is very likely that YouTube TV by the end of 2023 will become the 4th largest live TV service in the United States. This includes both streaming and cable TV companies.

This is good news for streaming services, and bad news for cable and satellite. My Streaming Life grows stronger every day.

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