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HDTV Almanac - Pay TV Services Lose 0.5 Million Subs
by Alfred Poor on August 10, 2011 Categories: Cable HDTV, Entertainment, Satellite HDTV

Are people unhappy with their pay TV subscriptions? Is the bad economy wiping out the money that people are willing to spend on television entertainment? According to the second quarter earnings reports, the cable and satellite television services lost a net of 553,000 subscribers in the second quarter of this year. Only DirecTV picked up a modest 26,000 gain, while Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner and Dish Network posted significant losses. In the meantime, the telco operations of Verizon (FiOS) and AT&T (U-Verse) gained a net of 184,000 and 202,000 subscribers respectively.

This would be really bad news for the cable and satellite companies if it weren’t for one small detail; Cablevision and DirecTV both showed profits for the quarter. However, the third quarter forecast continues to be glum, and the services are likely to lose just as many subscribers.

Something is going to have to give in the subscription TV market, but it’s not clear what will break first. Competition is stiff, but maybe these economic woes will accelerate a move to the a la carte pricing that might bring customers back with a more affordable price tag.

Posted by Alfred Poor, August 10, 2011 6:00 AM

Reader Commentary

Reply
wjhunt • Aug 10, 8:33am
Here’s a vote for the economy being the reason. We cancelled Directv this year, a very difficult decision btw. For us it was purely economic. With the price of everything on the rise, combined with cuts we’d already made to other luxuries, something had to give. Basically it came down to Internet, Satellite or cell phone. We chose satellite, figuring we could “get by” with TV from the ‘Net. We do have a Netflix account as well. I have a house full of sports fans though, so while Netflix is OK for movies and shows, we are suffering. It has not been as easy a transition as I thought it would be. However paying 90-100 a month for a BASIC tv package (meaning no premium channels) is no longer an option. So we will just miss out on some things, and purchase others a la carte online. My wife recently watched the Tour De France online for instance....
Reply
tnsprin • Aug 17, 12:47pm
One thing not made clear. Were the new AT&T and Verizon subscribers include in the total, or is the actual loss lower if they were included....

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About Alfred Poor

Alfred Poor is a well-known display industry expert, who writes the daily HDTV Almanac. He wrote for PC Magazine for more than 20 years, and now is focusing on the home entertainment and home networking markets.

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