Q2 Pay-TV Subscription Drop Biggest Yet, Strategy Analytics Says

The Q2 drop in pay-TV subscribers was the biggest it ever tracked, Strategy Analytics said Thursday in a report. But average revenue per user continues its long climb, Strategy Analytics said, with Time Warner Cable APRUs up 1.4 percent year over year, Dish Network up 4.5 percent, Charter Communications up 4.6 percent and DirecTV up 6.5 percent; AT&T now owns DirecTV. The top 20 pay-TV operators in the U.S. combined lost 479,000 subscribers, while Canada lost 53,000. Despite the subscriber losses, "there are clear opportunities for the pay TV providers as they begin to roll out over-the-top video services" like Dish's Sling TV, said Jason Blackwell, director of Strategy Analytics' service providers strategies, in a statement. CenturyLink, Comcast and Verizon are debuting over-the-top services this year, and AT&T seems likely to do so, having acquired DirecTV, Blackwell said. Earlier this week, Leichtman Research Group said that the cable industry's Q2 broadband subscriber gains mainly came at telco ISPs' expense (see 1508180028).