Pay-TV Providers Lose 1.5 Million Subscribers in Q2; Only Sling TV Gained

Pay-TV providers with 93 percent of the market lost 1.5 million net video subscribers in Q2, vs. a net loss of about 420,000 subscribers in the year-ago quarter, reported Leichtman Research Group Monday. Over the past year, top pay-TV providers had a net loss of about 5 million vs. a loss of about 1 million a year earlier, it said. Only Sling TV had subscriber gains in Q2, with 48,000, while DirecTV Now lost 168,000. The top seven cable companies lost about 455,000 video subscribers vs. about 275,000, more than any quarter since Q2 2014, LRG said. Satellite TV services continued to lead all categories with subscriber losses of about 855,000, vs. a net loss of 480,000; DirecTV lost 778,000 for its fifth consecutive quarterly loss, said the researcher. The top phone providers lost about 100,000 video subscribers vs. a loss of about 45,000 subscribers. Top providers reported 86.6 million subscribers: seven cable companies had 46.5 million video subscribers, satellite TV services reported 27.5 million, phone companies 8.8 million and the top publicly reporting vMVPD pay-TV services had 3.8 million, it said.