The largest traditional cable providers collectively lost over 1.7 million customers in the first quarter of 2020 – an overall loss of 2.2% in customers. This is the biggest overall drop in customers ever in a quarter. To put this loss into perspective, the big cable providers lost 18,800 customers every day.
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 95% of all cable customers in the country.
Following is a comparison of the first quarter subscriber numbers compared to the end of 2019:
| 1Q 2020 | 4Q 2019 | Change | % Change | |
| Comcast | 20,845,000 | 21,254,000 | (409,000) | -1.9% |
| Charter | 16,074,000 | 16,144,000 | (70,000) | -0.4% |
| DirecTV | 15,136,000 | 16,033,000 | (897,000) | -5.6% |
| Dish Networks | 9,012,000 | 9,144,000 | (132,000) | -1.4% |
| Verizon | 4,145,000 | 4,229,000 | (84,000) | -2.0% |
| Cox | 3,820,000 | 3,865,000 | (45,000) | -1.2% |
| AT&T U-verse | 3,440,000 | 3,440,000 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Altice | 3,137,500 | 3,179,200 | (41,700) | -1.3% |
| Mediacom | 693,000 | 710,000 | (17,000) | -2.4% |
| Frontier | 621,000 | 660,000 | (39,000) | -5.9% |
| Atlantic Broadband | 306,252 | 308,638 | (2,386) | -0.8% |
| Cable One | 303,000 | 314,000 | (11,000) | -3.5% |
| Total | 77,532,752 | 79,280,838 | (1,748,086) | -2.2% |
| Total Cable | 45,178,752 | 45,774,838 | (596,086) | -1.3% |
| Total Satellite | 24,148,000 | 25,427,000 | (1,029,000 | -4.1% |
| Total Telco | 8,206,000 | 8,639,000 | (123,000) | -1.5% |
Some observations of the numbers:
- Note that AT&T no longer reports customers by division, so Leichtman has reflected all of their losses as DirecTV and shown no losses for AT&T U-verse.
- The big loser is AT&T, which lost nearly 897,000 traditional video customers between DirecTV and AT&T U-verse.
- The big percentage loser is Frontier that lost almost 6% of its cable customers in the quarter.
- The big cable companies fared the best, but still lost 1.3% of their customer base in the quarter.
- Satellite TV continues to dive and lost more than 4% of customers in the quarter.
Leitchman speculated that the magnitude of the losses could be due to the impact of COVID-19. However, the story seems to be a bit more complex than that. Several of the big companies reported about the same level of disconnects as in recent quarters but saw a big drop-off in new customers buying service. It’s worth noting that the above losses were experienced even while these same companies saw an increase of over 1 million new broadband customers in the same quarter- the best growth in broadband since 2015.
The full impact of COVID-19 will likely be seen in the next quarter. There has to be an impact from over 23 million newly unemployed people this year, as of mid-May. Cutting cable is one of the most obvious ways for a household to save money.
There may be evidence that COVID-19 had an impact by the end of March. Leichtman also tracks the subscribers of the online TV services that are owned by the above companies. Collectively, there was a loss of 319,000 customers by Hulu Live, Sling TV, and DirecTV Now. Additionally, Paystation Vue exited the market in the first quarter. However, YouTube TV is reported to be growing and had over 2 million customers by the end of February.
Losses of this magnitude have to be rolling downhill in the industry. These losses mean a lot lower revenues for cable TV networks. It means a lot less franchise revenues for local governments. It means lower advertising revenues from loss of eyeballs.