The largest pay TV providers in the U.S.—which account for around 93% of the market—lost approximately 650,000 net video subscribers in third quarter.
That’s according to the latest quarterly figures from Leichtman Research Group, which compared the decline to a pro forma net loss of about 90,000 during the same quarter of 2020.
“While pay TV net losses in the quarter increased from last year’s third quarter, annual net losses were relatively similar to a year ago,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, in a statement. “Over the past year, top pay TV providers had a net loss of about 5,100,000 subscribers, compared to a loss of about 4,820,000 over the prior year.”
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The firm estimates that the top pay TV providers now account for about 77 million subscribers combined—41.9 million for the top seven cable companies, 27.5 million for other traditional pay TV services including telco and satellite, and 7.5 million for the top publicly reporting virtual MVPDs (Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV and fuboTV).
Comcast led losses for the U.S. cable sector after dropping 407,000 subscribers last quarter. In all, Leichtman estimates that the top cable providers lost 700,500 subscribers. Among other traditional services, DirecTV led the losses. The company has not reported subscriber numbers since being spun off from AT&T but Leichtman estimates the satellite provider lost another 412,000 subscribers, taking its total down to 15 million.
The top publicly reported vMVPDs—not including YouTube TV, Philo or DirecTV Stream—swung in the opposite direction of traditional distributors, adding a combined approximate 680,000 subscribers in the third quarter. The sector was led by Hulu + Live TV, which added 300,000 subscribers to bring its total back up to 4 million.