Pay TV is not shrinking

According to Reuters, US pay TV subscriptions have dropped by more than 400,000 this year. In Q2, Time Warner Cable saw video subscriptions fall by 169,000; Comcast 176,000, Dish 10,000 and DirecTV 52,000.

Cablevision and Charter are expected to release their results this week, which will increase the number of lost subscriptions, however the total number is estimated to be around 700,000 (taking into account small cable companies that are not public).

If you add back in the 275,000 pay-TV subs picked up by Verizon and AT&T last quarter, the total estimated net loss is around 425,000.

All Things Digital‘s Peter Kafka says the numbers are not a disaster for the pay-TV market, which always has its worst period during Q2. After adding subscribers in Q1, he predicts that Q3 will be flat or down, while providers will add more subs in Q4.

“You have to look at numbers for the whole year, not a single quarter. Once you do that, you end up with numbers that are basically flat, give or take a few thousand subscribers,” he writes.

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