What Did The Pandemic Mean For Cord-Cutting?

YoY change in pay-TV subscribers:
1) Traditional pay-TV – ↓ 5.9M
2) Streaming pay-TV – ↑ 2.1M
3) Total pay-TV – ↓ 3.8M

Total pay-TV subscriptions (YoY growth):
1) 2018 – 91.8M
2) 2019 – 88.6M (↓ 4%)
3) 2020 – 84.8M (↓ 4%)

Traditional pay-TV subscriptions (YoY growth):
1) 2018 – 85.1M
2) 2019 – 79.5M (↓ 7%)
3) 2020 – 73.6M (↓ 7%)

Streaming pay-TV subscriptions (YoY growth):
1) 2018 – 6.7M
2) 2019 – 9.0M (↑ 35%)
3) 2020 – 11.2M (↑ 24%)

Big question: What is driving the acceleration in cord-cutting?

Three waves of disruption for the pay-TV ecosystem, according to Matthew Ball:
1) Wave #1 (2007 – 2015) – Pay-TV is getting better but too expensive. Better value substitutes emerge

2) Wave #2 (2015 – 2019) – Pay-TV is still getting better, plus cheaper. Better value substitutes getting better

3) Wave #3 (2019 – Present) – Pay-TV is getting worse and more expensive. Suppliers focused on better value substitutes

Interesting: ANTENNA shows streaming-pay-TV sign-ups by month for each service.

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