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State of the Screens

Cord-Cutting Keeps Churning: U.S. Pay-TV Cancelers to Hit 33 Million in 2018 (Study)

By August 1, 2018No Comments

Traditional pay-TV vs. cord-cutters (% change YoY):
1)
Traditional pay-TV subscribers — 94M (↓ 4%)
2) Cord-cutters — 33M (↑ 33%)

Estimated cord-cutters by year:
1)
2017–25M
2)
2018–33M
3)
2019–39M
4)
2020–45M
5)
2021–50M
6)
2022–55M

Individuals in traditional pay-TV households:
1)
2015–205M
2)
2022–170M

Video viewers by platform:
1)
YouTube — 192M
2)
Traditional Pay-TV — 187M
3)
Netflix — 148M
4)
Amazon — 89M
5)
Hulu — 55M
6)
HBO Now — 17M
7)
Sling TV — 7M

Quote from Marcien Jenckes — President, Advertising @ Comcast:
“Television has been entitled…Because it’s so good as a medium … we didn’t as an industry do what we needed to do to make a case for ourselves.”

Flashback #1: 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 cable TV ($103/month) to a lower cost streaming service such as SlingTV.

Flashback #2: TiVo Q4 2017 Online Video & Pay-TV Trends Report

Other key findings (% change from 2017-Q3):
1) 81% only want to pay for specific channels (↓ 1%)
2) $33 is the ideal monthly amount (↑ 6%)
3) 22 is the ideal number of channels (↑ 0%)
4) $1.50 would be the cost/channel/month (↑ 6%)

Flashback #3: The Average Cable TV Bill is Set to Exceed $140 by 2020

More #1: The pay-TV exodus is ramping up as Netflix and other streaming services pump out high-quality original shows

More #2: Exodus from Pay TV Accelerates Despite OTT Partnerships

More #3: Comcast is totally okay with you not having an Xfinity set-top box

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.