Surging vMVPDs 'Key Segment' of Pay-TV Market, Says LRG
Pay-TV providers narrowed subscriber losses in Q3 to 120,000 -- the fewest since Q1 2018 -- vs. a pro forma net loss of about 945,000 in 2019's third quarter, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. The top publicly reporting vMVPDs --…
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Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now and fubuTV -- added just over a million subscribers, up from 815,000 net adds. LRG President Bruce Leichtman credited the return of live sports (see 2011170001). Leichtman said it’s time to recognize vMVPDs as a “key segment of the live pay-TV industry.” Hulu + Live TV is the fifth-largest pay-TV service in the U.S., and YouTube TV has over 3 million subscribers, including a million net additions this year, he noted. The top seven cable companies shed 375,000 video subscribers in Q3 vs. 410,000 a year ago, while satellite services lost 775,000, led by DirecTV with 690,000, down from 1.1 million in Q3 2019. Among phone providers, Verizon Fios lost 62,000 video subscribers, Frontier lost 42,000 and AT&T U-verse/AT&T TV gained 100,000.