Pay-TV Subscription Decline Continues in Q1

Pay-TV subscriptions continued to fall in Q1, though cable subscription numbers improved, SNL Kagan said in a news release Thursday. Cable posted “its best first-quarter in eight years,” by losing only 18,300 video customers, the media research firm said. But cable, DBS and telco multichannel video programming distributors as a group lost 162,000 subscribers in Q1, it said. “The mounting loss in the quarter foreshadows mounting pressure on service providers and an accelerating annual decline.” MVPDs lost 1.2 million subscribers over the preceding 12 months, SNL Kagan said. DBS gained 166,000 subs in Q1, it said. The growth was driven by DirecTV's growth strategy and offsetting losses from Dish Network, the researcher said.