| Q2 2024 | Change since Q2 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cable, Satellite, Telco TV homes | 53.7 million | -12.0% |
| Penetration of occupied homes | 40.8% | -6% |
| Homes without cable, satellite, telco TV | 77.8 million | +12.4% |
Commentary
US pay live TV penetration to sink to 50% in 2025
(comments on 2023 performance)
US homes with a pay live TV subscription fell by 6.4 million in 2023. Traditional pay TV providers lost 8.4 million subscribers, while vMVPDs gained 2 million. Pay live TV homes will reach 50% or lower in 2025.
Cable, satellite, and telco TV lose 13% of subscribers
The decline in traditional pay TV subscribers accelerated in 2023. In 2022, the industry lost 11% of its subscribers (7.9 million.) 2023 saw the decline increase to 13%, down 8.4 million subscribers. There are now 57.3 million cable, satellite, and telco TV subscribers.
Pay Live TV—All providers that offer a bundle of live TV channels for a monthly fee. These include cable, satellite, telco, and vMVPD operators.
According to Leichtman Research, cable suffered slightly less than satellite and telco TV. Top cable providers declined by 3.6 million (down 10%) to 34.1 million. Top satellite and telco operators lost 13% to finish the year with 21 million subscribers.
vMVPDs pick up some of the slack
vMVPD growth slowed in 2023. vMVPD providers added 2 million subscribers in 2023, an increase of 13%, to finish with 17.8 million. In 2022, the industry gained 18%. In other words, vMVPDs offset 30% of the decline in traditional pay TV in 2023, about the same as in 2022.
However, only two providers in the space showed strong growth. YouTube TV added approximately 2 million subscribers to reach 8 million. It is almost twice the size of its nearest competitor, Hulu+Live, which has 4.6 million and hardly grew at all in 2023. Fubo grew subscribers by 12% to reach 1.6 million.
Pay Live TV homes decline by 6% in 2023
The number of homes with either a traditional pay TV or vMVPD subscription – pay live TV homes – fell by 6%, or 4.7 million. Now, 76.8 million US homes pay for a big bundle of live TV channels. Since there were 131.1 million occupied homes in the US at the end of 2023, pay live TV penetration was 58.6%, down from 62.9% in 2022.
The number of homes without a subscription to a live TV service increased to 54.3 million in 2023. With 18 million over-the-air antenna TV homes in the US, some homes without pay live TV are still watching live channels. However, most of them are broadband-only homes, with a few not watching TV.
What will happen in 2024 and beyond?
Many factors could change the rate of decline of the pay Live TV market. For example, the Disney, Fox, and WB Discovery sports JV, which contains most cable sports TV channels, could be disruptive. It could ignite a wave of subscriber cancellations if priced in the estimated $40-$50 range. Today, the only way to get all the channels is with an MVPD or vMVPD subscription costing at least $70 monthly. Many sports fans might jump at the chance to save $20 or more a month.
Conversely, the increased flexibility won by Charter from Disney could allow the MVPD to slow the decline in subscribers. It has already added Disney+ with ads and ESPN+ to some service tiers without increasing prices. If subscribers embraced the SVOD additions and the approach spreads to other operators, it could slow the decline of pay live TV.
However, if the acceleration in the decline of pay-live TV continues in 2024 and 2025, the number of homes with a pay-live TV subscription will fall to 50% or lower in 2025.
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Tables and graphs on this page are derived from various resources, including pay TV operator financial fillings, Leichtman Research, Nielsen, et al. The analysis and calculations based on this data were performed by nScreenMedia
