The number of traditional cable TV subscribers continued to plummet in the third quarter of 2019. The numbers below come from Leichtman Research Group which compiles these numbers from reports made to investors, except for Cox which is estimated.
The numbers reported are for the largest cable providers and Leichtman estimates that these companies represent 93% of all cable customers in the country.
For the quarter, the large cable companies lost 2.1% of subscribers which would equate to a trend of losing 8.4% for the year. However, that number needs to be put into context. The biggest drop of customers came from AT&T / DirectTV which lost nearly 1.3 million customers in the quarter, and 2.6 million customers so far this year. Much of AT&T’s loss comes from the decision to end discount plans to customers and has been letting customers go who won’t agree to pay full price at the end of previously given discount plans. The company says they are glad to be rid of customers who were not contributing to the bottom line of the company. All of the other providers collectively lost 0.9% of market share for the quarter, or a pace of 3.8% annualized. It appears the many of the lost DirecTV customers didn’t reappear at another cable provider and are gone from the industry, and so AT&T seems to be pushing households to cut the cord perhaps earlier than they might have otherwise. The nearly 1.8 million customer loss for the quarter sets a new record for cord-cutting.
Following is a comparison of the second and third quarters of this year:
| 3Q 2019 | 2Q 2019 | Change | % Change | |
| Comcast | 21,403,000 | 21,641,000 | (238,000) | -1.1% |
| DirecTV | 16,828,000 | 17,901,000 | (1,073,000) | -6.0% |
| Charter | 16,245,000 | 16,320,000 | (75,000) | -0.5% |
| Dish TV | 9,494,000 | 9,560,000 | (66,000) | -0.7% |
| Verizon | 4,280,000 | 4,346,000 | (66,000) | -1.5% |
| Cox | 3,900,000 | 3,940,000 | (40,000) | -1.0% |
| AT&T U-verse | 3,600,000 | 3,704,000 | (104,000) | -2.8% |
| Altice | 3,223,400 | 3,255,300 | (31,900) | -1.0% |
| Mediacom | 729,000 | 747,000 | (18,000) | -2.4% |
| Frontier | 698,000 | 738,000 | (40,000) | -5.4% |
| Atlantic Broadband | 312,555 | 307,261 | 5,294 | 1.7% |
| Cable ONE | 298,063 | 308,493 | (10,430) | -3.4% |
| Total | 81,011,018 | 82,768,054 | (1,757,036) | -2.1% |
Some other observations:
- Frontier continues to bleed and lost 5.4% of its cable customers along with 71,000 broadband customers in the second quarter.
- Several other companies – Mediacom, and Cable One lost more than 2% of their cable customer base in the quarter.
- The rate of loss for Dish Networks continues to shrink, and this might be due to picking up customers that are leaving DirecTV.
I haven’t seen anybody tracking the quarterly performance of all of the online cable equivalent providers – the companies that carry a full line-up online. It seems unlikely from the numbers I have seen that these companies are picking up a lot of the customers leaving traditional cable TV. For example, Leichtman reports that Sling TV picked up 214,000 customers in the third quarter while DirecTV Now lost 195,000 customers.
I have to wonder at what point the cable industry will start to implode? Cord cutting is accelerating. The popular press and social media are full of advice telling people to cut the cord. There are major new online content platforms like Disney+, HBO Plus, and Apple + that are providing additional justification to cut the cord. Advertising revenues are starting to drop along with subscriber revenues.
There must be drastic changes in industry practices if the traditional cable business is to survive. Continued price increases are pushing cable TV out of the range of affordability for most homes. To survive, the cable companies and the programmers would have to get together to reform the industry with affordable products people are willing to buy. At least for now, that possibility seems remote.