US video subscriber loss slows

Cable, telco and satellite video services in the US lost 1.5 million subscribers during the second quarter of 2021.

While they continue to shed subscribers, a new report from Kagan shows that video losses in the US are slowing from previous quarters. 

The report notes that continued sluggish virtual multichannel growth negatively impacted progress in maintaining the number of subscriptions to a package of live linear network and on-demand content.

In total, the combined virtual and traditional multichannel households accounted for 64.3% of occupied households at 83.1 million residential subscriptions.

Virtual multichannel households meanwhile saw a 0.7% uptick in subscribers to a total of 13 million customers. This segment added 2.7 million subscribers year-over-year. 

Satellite multichannel logged its smallest quarterly net losses since the second quarter of 2018, but the segment remains on a downward trajectory. It ended the period with an estimated 20.5 million subscribers, down 39% from its Q1 2014 peak.

Cable operators meanwhile recorded the sector’s largest decline on record for the first half of 2021, surpassing the previous record set in 2020 by 10%.