The largest pay TV providers in the U.S. lost about 1,230,000 net video customers in the second quarter of 2021, according to Leichtman Research Group.
That number includes 587,649 cable losses from Comcast, Charter, Cox, Altice, Mediacom, Atlantic Broadband, and Cable One. Another 698,000 losses came from AT&T TV Premium TV, Dish TV, Verizon FiOS, and Frontier. The report also included three of the top live TV streaming services – Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, and fubo TV – which saw a net loss of 56,291 subscribers due to Hulu + Live TV’s 100,000 subscriber loss. The report did not include YouTube TV which hasn’t disclosed subscriber numbers since 2020.
“Pay-TV net losses of 1,230,000 in 2Q 2021 were about 275,000 fewer than in 2Q 2020 on a pro forma basis,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. “Over the past year, top pay-TV providers had a net loss of about 4,520,000 subscribers, compared to a loss of about 5,460,000 over the prior year.”
The report shows that the top cable companies now have 42.6 million video customers and other traditional pay TV companies have 28.2 million customers. The top live TV streaming services, with the exception of YouTube TV, have a combined 6.8 million subscribers. YouTube TV last reported 3 million subscribers in Q3 2020.