The cord cutting woes continue for cable and satellite companies like Comcast and AT&T’s DIRECTV, as both AT&T and Comcast have reported their second quarter 2018 numbers, and they’re not pretty when it comes to subscription numbers.
The services lost a combined 740,000 traditional pay-TV subscribers, which works out to be over 8,000 subscribers every day.
AT&T lost about 600,000 DIRECTV and U-Verse TV customers. Comcast lost about 140,000 traditional TV customers.
If the two companies continue to shed subscribers at that rate, they’ll lose approximately 2,9 million pay-TV customers in 2018. There was some good news in the numbers for both services, as Comcast saw the number of broadband-only customers increase, and AT&T added over 340,000 DIRECTV NOW subscribers.
Cable and satellite companies are expected to see their losses continue down the road, as 5G home internet is beginning to roll out in the United States, which is likely to lead to customers cutting the cable in increasing numbers, as the need for wired broadband access will lessen greatly.
The cord cutting numbers continue to increase as streaming services continue to become a more popular way to view content. Devices like the iPhone, iPad, and the Apple TV set top streaming box have lead to a wave of users who are dropping their cable television subscription in favor of streaming services.