US televisions lose 5 million subs in 2023
Leading television service providers in the United States lost around 5 million subscribers between them in 2023. They still account for over 70 million subscribing households, but that is down from 91.5 million at the end of 2018. It adds up to over a 20 million net loss in five years, Azernews reports, citing a foreign media outlet.
The leading television service providers in the United States, representing about 96% of the market, lost 5,035,000 video subscribers in 2023, compared to a loss of 4,590,000 in 2022.
That is according to Leichtman Research Group and includes estimates for companies like DirecTV that no longer publish figures.
The leading cable companies lost 3.82 million subscribers between them, compared to a loss of 2.54 million the previous year, ending 2023 with a total of 34.05 million. Most of those were across Charter and Comcast, that have just over 14 million each. The largest net subscriber loss was from Comcast, with a reduction of 2.04 million subscribers.
Satellite service providers DirecTV and Dish had an estimated 11.30 million and 6.47 million subscribers, down by 1.80 million and 0.95 million respectively. That includes estimates for U-verse and DirecTV Stream households.
Telco services Verizon Fios and Frontier had 3.01 and 0.23 million subscribers, down by 289,000 and 72,000.
Online services were generally up, with YouTube TV adding around 1.90 million subscribers at an estimated 7.9 million, passing the 8 million mark in February 2024. Hulu+ Live TV added 100,000 at 4.60 million. Sling TV lost 279,000 at 2.06 million, while Fubo gained 173,000, ending the year with 1.62 million. Between them, these services added 1.89 million subscribers in 2023, compared to 1.67 million the previous year. That was basically down to YouTube TV, which is now the fourth largest television provider in the United States by subscriber numbers.
Although the overall market continues to reduce, it is notable that the services delivered online are approaching the numbers of those delivered by satellite. Telco television services, delivered using IPTV over managed networks, continue to dwindle, having once been seen as the growth opportunity for television services.
Traditional television services, including telco television but not including those delivered over the open internet, lost 6.93 million subscribers in 2023, compared to a net loss of about 6.26 million in 2022.
However, despite the large losses, 71.3 million homes are still subscribing to television service providers in the United States.
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