Shedding more light on the pay TV industry's recent rough patch, Leichtman Research Group said that the 13 largest pay TV providers in the U.S., representing about 95% of the market, lost about 470,000 net video subs in the second quarter of 2015, widened from a loss of about 305,000 video subs in the year-ago quarter.
It marked the biggest loss in the category for the period ever, LRG said. SNL Kagan, by the way, announced last week that a sharp rise in cord-cutting during the period paved the way for losses of 625,000 subs in Q2. MoffettNathanson, meanwhile, pinned the Q2 pay TV loss at about 566,000 subs.
Despite that, the top nine cable MSOs showed a huge improvement, losing 260,000 video subs in Q2, versus a loss of 510,000 in the year-ago quarter. That marked the fewest losses in any Q2, a quarter generally plagued by “seasonality” (as students and snowbirds make their moves for the summer), by cable since 2008.
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