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State of the Screens

Cord Cutting Isn’t The Future Of TV — It’s Cord Shifting

By February 19, 2018No Comments

Skinny bundles are starting to grow in both channels offered and monthly cost.

The sweet spot appears to be at 80–100 channels and $45 — $60 per month (before broadband).

Flashback. Cord-Cutting Explodes: 22 Million U.S. Adults Will Have Canceled Cable, Satellite TV by End of 2017

Quick definitions:
1) Cord-cutters — Consumers who cancel traditional pay-TV
2) Cord-nevers — Consumers who have not yet subscribed to traditional pay-TV
3) Cord-shavers — Consumers who reduce their pay-TV bill. An example of this would be moving from able ($103/month) to a lower cost streaming service such as SlingTV.

Streaming pay-TV providers added 5.3M subscribers in 2017 led by Sling TV (% of total):
1)
Sling TV — 2.3M (43%)
2) DirecTV Now — 1.2M (23%)
3) PlayStation Vue — 600K (11%)
4) Hulu with Live TV — 500K (8%)
5) YouTube TV — 300K (6%)
6) fuboTV — 200K (3%)
7) Philo — 100K (1%)
8) Other — 250K (5%)

Pay-TV status of streaming subscribers:
1) Cord-cutters — 54%
2) Subscribe to both traditional and streaming — 37%
3) Cord-nevers — 9%

Michael Beach

Michael Beach is the Chief Executive Officer of Cross Screen Media, a media analytics and software company that enables marketers to plan, activate, and measure CTV and linear TV at the local level. Michael is also the founder and editor of State of the Screens, a weekly newsletter focused on video advertising that is a must-read for thought leaders in the advertising industry. He has appeared in such publications as PBS Frontline, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Axios, CNBC and Bloomberg, and on NPR’s Planet Money podcast.