The number of US households who receive their television from one of the major service providers has fallen below 75 million.
Informitv’s Multiscreen Index says the Top 10 television service providers lost 2.33 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2020. The total number of subscribers has fallen by 9 million over the last two years.
AT&T lost the most subscribers, losing 897,000 Premium TV subscribers and a further 135,000 AT&T TV NOW subscribers, for a combined loss of over a million, DISH Network ended the first quarter with 382,000 fewer satellite television subscribers and 281,000 fewer for its Sling TV online television service, and Comcast lost 388,000 television subscribers. It was its twelfth consecutive quarterly subscriber loss, with its total falling below 20 million for the first time in almost two decades.
“This is the largest quarterly loss of television subscribers in the United States we have reported to date,” noted Dr William Cooper, the editor of the informitv Multiscreen Index. “The coronavirus pandemic has contributed to this, but many service providers have been losing subscribers for some time. Notably, their newer online services are now no exception to this trend.”
“It is difficult to determine how far these losses can be attributed to economic conditions and how much to an accelerating long-term structural decline,” observed informitv analyst Dr Sue Farrell.
The top 10 services for the United States in the Multiscreen Index now have 74.65 million television customers between them, accounting for 62% of television homes. Subscriber numbers are as reported by service providers, rather than analyst estimates. Cox Communications is not included in the top 10 as it does not report subscriber numbers.
