11.18.22
Aluma estimates U.S. pay-TV providers lost 595,000 subscribers in the second quarter of 2022, down from up from 1.53 million in second quarter.
- Cable MVPDs lost almost 1.02 million subscribers during this time, declining from 41.4M to 40.37M, a loss of 2.5% of its video base. Comcast accounted for 55% of this loss, down 562K subscribers in the third quarter, while Charter accounted for 20%, down 204K.
- Satellite and telco MVPDs lost 695K subscribers, declining from 25.9M to 25.2M, a loss of 2.7% of its video base. DirecTV + U-verse accounted for 450K lost subscribers, Dish Network 184K. (U-verse no longer sells services and existing customers are being transitioned to app-based DirecTV Stream.)
- Virtual MVPDs added 1.2M subscribers in third quarter, up from 14.1M in Q2.22 to 15.2M in Q3.22, due to Hulu + Live TV adding 400K, Sling TV adding 214,000, and YouTube TV adding 200,000, all likely due to the beginning of the NFL season.
Unlike other subscription tabulations, Aluma includes estimates for those companies that do not publicly release such information, then we update those counts when we get a peak behind the curtain. For example, YouTube TV keeps its sub counts secret but selectively leaks them every now and then to keep us honest. Google recently acknowledge that, as of second quarter, it had more than 5M YouTube TV subscriptions, so we recalibrated its count history from the date of its last public announcement in October 2020. Accordingly, we estimate the service adding 400,000 subscribers in second quarter of this year. This is largely responsible for the virtual pay-TV subscriptions increasing by 100,000, versus a decline as many have reported. (When you’re given lemons, you make lemonade.)
Legacy operators |
Q3.22 |
Q2.22 |
+/- change |
|
| Comcast | 16.58 | 17.14 | -0.562 | |
| Charter | 15.29 | 15.50 | -0.204 | |
| Cox* | 3.20 | 3.30 | -0.097 | |
| Altice | 2.49 | 2.57 | -0.082 | |
| Mediacom* | 0.53 | 0.54 | -0.011 | |
| Breezeline* | 0.33 | 0.33 | -0.009 | |
| Cable ONE* | 0.21 | 0.22 | -0.008 | |
| Wide Open West | 0.13 | 0.14 | -0.006 | |
| Other cable* | 1.62 | 1.65 | -0.040 | |
| Total cable | 40.37 | 41.39 | -1.018 | |
| DirectTV + Uverse* | 13.40 | 13.85 | -0.450 | |
| Dish Networks | 7.61 | 7.79 | -0.184 | |
| Verizon Fios | 3.38 | 3.41 | -0.026 | |
| Frontier | 0.32 | 0.34 | -0.021 | |
| Other telco* | 0.49 | 0.51 | -0.014 | |
| Total DBS & telco | 25.21 | 25.90 | -0.695 | |
| Total legacy | 65.58 | 67.29 | -1.713 | |
Virtual operators |
Q3.22 |
Q2.22 |
+/- change |
|
| Sling TV | 2.41 | 2.20 | 0.214 | |
| DirecTV Stream* | 0.40 | 0.42 | -0.020 | |
| Hulu Live TV | 4.40 | 4.00 | 0.400 | |
| YouTube TV* | 5.20 | 5.00 | 0.200 | |
| Fubo | 1.231 | 0.95 | 0.284 | |
| Philo* | 0.750 | 0.77 | -0.020 | |
| Other* | 0.84 | 0.78 | 0.060 | |
| Total virtual | 15.23 | 14.11 | 1.118 | |
| TOTAL U.S. PAY-TV SUBSCRIBERS | 80.90 | 81.40 | -0.595 | |
| © Aluma Insights 2022 | ||||
| *Aluma estimates | ||||