Legacy multichannel customer defections accelerated in the quarter ended September 30, 2017, coming in just shy of the 1.2-million mark, according to Kagan.
The year-to-date losses now total 2.9 million according to data compiled by Kagan, a group within S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Kagan released these figures after the Leichtman Research Group said that US pay-TV providers lost 405,000 subs in 3Q 2017. Earlier the informitv Multiscreen Index said that US TV service providers lost 835,000 subscribers..
According to Kagan, the combined cable, Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) and telecommunications multichannel subscriptions fell to 94.9 million at the end of the period, including 91.7 million residential customers, for a 74.8% residential multichannel penetration.
Additional takeaways from Kagan’s Q3 US Multichannel Subscriber report: Cable operators lost approx. 801,000 total video customers. In the first nine months of 2017, total losses were up 114% over the same interval in 2016.
The IPTV platform logged its ninth consecutive quarter of video customer erosion, with losses coming in at approx. 184,000. AT&T’s emphasis on DirecTV Now is weighing heavily on the company’s legacy multichannel products, including U-verse, which accounted for 73.5% of the sector decline during the period.
Traditional satellite services were down an aggregate approx. 618,000 subscribers, accounting for 53% of the universe’s losses.
Adding the top two virtual service providers (VSPs) affiliated with legacy multichannel distributors –DISH Network’s Sling TV and AT&T’s DirecTV Now – reduces the sector’s calculated quarterly losses to approx. 635,000.
