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State of the Screens

Who Killed the Great American Cable-TV Bundle?

By August 21, 2018No Comments
Traditional pay-TV subscribers by year according to Bloomberg Intelligence:

1) 2012–100.6M
2)
2013–100.4M
3)
2014–99.9M
4)
2015–98.5M
5)
2016–96.5M
6)
2017–95.2M

The average cable bill has risen to $106.20 per month.

Perspective: 80%+ of U.S. HH still subscribe to traditional pay-TV. A loss of 600K subscribers in a given quarter amounts to 0.6% of total subscribers.

Roughly 70% of those cutting traditional pay-TV are moving over to streaming.

Subscriber growth in 2018-Q2:
1) Traditional pay-TV — ↓ 849K
2) Streaming pay-TV — ↑ 691K

Source of pay-TV:
1) Cable — 52%
2) Satellite — 34%
3) Phone — 10%
4) Streaming — 4%

Few channels matter: In 2017, the average pay-TV subscriber tuned into 15 out of the 198 channels that were available to them.

% of TV channels viewed:
1) 2005–16%
2) 2010–12%
3)
2015–8%
4)
2017–7%

More #1: Leading analyst detects signs of pace of US cord-cutting slowing down

More #2: The little live-TV streaming service that could

More #3: Survey Says! How The Great Cord Cutting Myth Gets Spread

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.