Pay-TV operators lost a total of 179,000 video subscribers in the third quarter, more than double the 83,000 lost in Q3 2013.
On Friday, that was definitive evidence enough for the influential Wall Street Journal to loudly declare that "'Cord cutting' is accelerating as more consumers drop cable and satellite-TV connections."
With aggregate gains and losses yo-yoing a bit over the last several years, research analyst Craig Moffett--the man responsible for the Q3 tally--was sanguine regarding a total video customer loss that amounted to around 0.1 percent. As FierceCable noted Thursday, Moffett thought it was more significant that subscriber growth had tailed off significantly for both the satellite and telco sectors.
But with only two of the publicly traded pay-TV companies reporting video subscriber growth for the just-completed quarter, no one can deny that the video subscriber metrics are going in a southern direction.
With his company losing 56,000 pay-TV customers in the third quarter, Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) CEO James Dolan said Thursday that his company is focusing on broadband-related initiatives, such as public Wi-Fi.
"Ultimately cord-cutting and going to over the top is something we do believe is going to happen and we are preparing ourselves for it," Dolan said.
For more:
- read this Wall Street Journal story
Related links:
Satellite and telco growth 'hit the wall' in Q3, analyst notes
DirecTV loses 28K subscribers in Q3 as cord-cutting fears again take hold
Dish loses 12K TV subscribers, misses Wall Street forecasts
Shammo: Verizon will increase FiOS video rates in Q4 to offset rise in content costs
AT&T adds 216K U-verse TV subscribers, passes 6M mark