The worst loss in the pay-TV sector – the variety

Traditional cable and satellite TV providers posted their biggest quarterly customer losses in the first three months of 2020 as the COVID-19 tornado began to hit the U.S. economy in March. What’s more, Internet-distributed “virtual” TV providers also registered net losses during the period.

Analysts predict that cordless bleeding will only get worse in the second trimester due to deeper bites from the carnivirus as a result of the economy.

According to Wall Street analyst Moffatnatson estimates, in the background of record unemployment – a combination of high prices as well as live sports decline Q1 dropped a total of 1.8 million pay-TV subscribers. This translates into an annual rate of 7.6% reduction in the sector’s rapid contraction on record.

Analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a research note on Friday, “3% of occupied households have reached the level of traditional theatrical pay-TV, which has not been seen before 1995.” “There are now unsubsidized families (46M) as there were paid TV subscribers in 1986.”

As cord cuts accelerate, so does the increase in authorized fees for cable networks in the United States, UBS Securities analyst John Hodulik said in a note on Friday.

“We believe [coronavirus] The incidence of cutting the cord in the lockdown episode may increase moderately, but the expected downturn has been reduced more dramatically since the lockdown, Hollick writes. “Sports nets should be pressured in the short term in the absence of sports because distributors pay high fees and post-lockdown post-sports (especially professional and college football) if not returned in the fall, potentially create the perfect storm of cord cutting.”

Tutorial TV at the end of the day saw a reduction in losses: AT&T dropped a total of 1 million TV subscribers, mostly DirectTV, and Dish Network dropped 413,000 for free, the company’s lowest ever loss ever.

Meanwhile, virtual pay-TV players, including AT&T TV Now, Dish’s Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and FubTV, lost a combined 341,000 subscribers in Q1, according to Moffat’s calculations. This indicates that former members of Sony’s PlayStation V – which shut down the service at the end of January – “seem to be present … nowhere”, he added.

The only significant subscription-TV services to add subscribers in the first quarter of 2020 were Hulu + Live TV – it stood at around 100,000 to 3.2 million – and Google’s YouTube, which Moffat estimated to have fined about 300,000.

In the midst of the chore, the big media companies – Disney, NBC Universal and WarnerMedia – have launched or are nearing the end of their live streaming service. Disney Plus, for one, marked 54.5 million subscribers worldwide as of May 4, less than six months after its initial launch. It will join HBO Max and NBCU’s Peacock later this month, ready for a national rollout in July.

However, Moffett writes, “Despite the prudent evaluation of SVOD platforms like Disney +, we suspect that DTC lifeboats may be matched to the profitability of the business that they are designed to replace.”