5.18.22
Aluma estimates U.S. pay-TV providers lost 2.2 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2022.
- Cable MVPDs lost .9 million subscribers during this three-month period, declining from 43.2M to 42.3M, 2.1% of its video base. Comcast accounted for 57% of this loss, down 510K subscribers.
- Satellite and telco MVPDs lost .7 million subscribers, declining from 27.3M to 26.6M, 2.3% of its video base. DirecTV + U-verse accounted for 350K lost subscribers, Dish Network 230K. (Note that U-verse no longer sells services and existing customers are being transitioned to app-based DirecTV Stream.)
- Virtual MVPDs lost .6 million subscribers, down from 13M to 12.4M, 4.6% of the user base. It seems virtual MVPDs are shedding subscribers at the same pace as DBS + telco MVPDs.
The pace of subscriber losses was surprisingly brisk, undoubtedly fueled by softening demand for virtual MVPD services, which is happening well before most anticipated. If this continues, we anticipate a shake-out in the virtual MVPD marketplace in the next 2-3 years. There are simply too many competitors to support less than 15 million subscribers. Candidates for exit include Fubo TV and Philo, though the latter may be less appealing given its non-sports focus and competition from Discovery+, a much less expensive SVOD service that pools the best of Warner Bros. Discovery’s lifestyle content from many of the same anchors as featured in Philo.
Note that the table below includes public data from financial reports, as well as Aluma’s estimates for companies that do not report subscriber counts on a regular basis.
|
Legacy operators |
Q1.22 (#M) | Q4.21 (#M) | +/- change (#M) | |
| Comcast |
17.66 |
18.18 |
-0.51 |
|
| Charter |
15.72 |
15.83 |
-0.11 |
|
| Cox |
3.3* |
3.40* |
-0.10 |
|
| Altice |
2.66 |
2.73 |
-0.07 |
|
| Mediacom |
0.55* |
0.57 |
-0.02 |
|
| Breezeline |
0.34* |
0.35* |
-0.01 |
|
| Cable ONE |
0.24 |
0.26 |
-0.02 |
|
| Wide Open West |
0.14 |
0.15 |
-0.01 |
|
| Other cable |
1.69* |
1.73* |
-0.03 |
|
|
Total cable |
42.31 |
43.2 |
-0.89 |
|
| DirectTV + Uverse |
14.25* |
14.6* |
0.35 |
|
| Dish Networks |
7.99 |
8.22 |
-0.23 |
|
| Verizon Fios |
3.5 |
3.57 |
-0.08 |
|
| Frontier |
0.35 |
0.38 |
-0.03 |
|
| Other telco |
0.52 |
0.54 |
-0.01 |
|
|
Total DBS & telco |
26.61 |
27.31 |
-0.7 |
|
| Total legacy |
68.92 |
70.41 |
-1.6 |
|
| Virtual operators |
Q1.22 (#M) |
Q4.21 (#M) |
+/- change (#M) |
|
| Sling TV |
2.25 |
2.49 |
-0.24 |
|
| DirecTV Stream |
0.45* |
0.50* |
-0.05 |
|
| Hulu Live TV |
4.1 |
4 |
0.1 |
|
| YouTube TV |
3.00* |
3.40* |
-0.4 |
|
| Fubo |
1.06 |
1.11 |
-0.06 |
|
| Philo |
0.78* |
0.79* |
-0.01 |
|
|
Frndly |
0.55* | 0.5 | 0.05 | |
|
Other |
0.17* | 0.16* |
0.01 |
|
|
Total virtual |
12.36 | 12.95 |
-0.59 |
|
|
TOTAL U.S. PAY-TV SUBSCRIBERS |
81.27 | 83.46 |
-2.19 |
|
| *Aluma estimates | ||||
| © Aluma Insights 2022 | ||||