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Report: Cord Cutting Is No Longer an Urban Myth

Aug 7, 2013  •  Post A Comment

The U.S. pay-television industry lost 316,000 customers for the 12-month period ending in June, signaling that cord cutting is picking up pace, Variety reports, citing data from Moffett Research analyst Craig Moffett.

The news comes even as the housing market is recovering, the report notes.

"Cord cutting used to be an urban myth. It isn’t anymore,” Moffett wrote in a research report. “No, the numbers aren’t huge, but they are statistically significant.”

The story adds, "The second quarter is seasonally weak for pay TV, given that colleges shut down and ‘snow birds head north,’ Moffett noted. But for the 12 months ending June 30, pay TV subscribership fell about 0.3% whereas subscribership rose 330,000 (up 0.3%) for the 12-month period ending Q2 2012, according to Moffett, a longtime industry analyst who for years has warned about the affordability problem of pay TV services."

Citing an analysis by Leichtman Research Group, the story adds: "The latest figures showing the industry decline — which has hit cable operators including Comcast and Time Warner Cable the hardest — comes after pay-TV providers shrank subscriber rolls 80,000 on a year-to-year basis in the first quarter of 2013."

3 Comments

  1. Haven’t had cable/satellite for well over a decade. Do not miss it one bit.

  2. Let’s just say that Time-Warner isn’t doing themselves — or the rest of the cable industry — any favors by shutting out paying customers in New York and Los Angeles. Don’t they realize CBS has two of the hottest, most talked-about original series this summer, Under the Dome (on CBS) and Ray Donovan (on Showtime)? And that CBS customers are taking their anger out on TW, not CBS?

  3. “Statistically significant”? Really?
    Three-tenths of a percent… seems to me that would just about cover the number of people simply dropping cable for economic reasons, rather than being an indicator of a rising trend.
    And, btw, cord cutting is not an urban myth but I doubt these numbers are indicative of it.

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