Pay-TV Will Dip To 38% Of U.S. Homes By 2027

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By 2027, the U.S. television industry will see $30 billion less annually from traditional subscription and advertising revenue than it did a decade earlier amid ongoing cord cutting, according to a new forecast by PwC published today.

The rate of subscriber decline in the traditional TV bundle hit a milestone in the third quarter of 2022, when the number of pay-TV households fell below half the total number of U.S homes for the first time.

By 2027, the firm’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2023-2027 (which also broke U.S. numbers separately) predicted, millions more U.S. homes will have walked away, reducing total penetration to 49.9 million — down from almost 100 million as recently as 2016 — which means pay-TV will be present in just 38% of total U.S. homes.


That 49 million is of all Live TV Providers, Cable, Satellite and Streaming, the estimates I have seen are Comcast Video Subscribers is expected to be 10-12 Million in 2027,, Spectrum 9-11 million, YouTube TV 8-10 Million.

That is already 27-33 Million, that leaves only 16-22 Million ( out of 49 Million) for the rest of Live Pay TV-Hulu Live, Dish, DirecTV, Sling, Cox, Fios, Altice, Uverse, Fubo,, etc.

 
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Yeah, we don't need to see this clickbate over and over again. First of all the whole premise is bunk. According to them it's only pay TV if it's via a cable TV or satellite TV provider so, based on that, streaming must be free then, right? Because if it's not free then it is, in fact, pay TV. Oh, wait, it isn't free! It's ALL pay TV, you just write the check to a different company. That phoney baloney headline would mean, if it had any possibility of being true, that 62% of US homes will have no TV (even antenna TV isn't free and watch out for ATSC 3.0's ability to scramble) by 2027. Yeah, right. Come on folks, somebody is paying now and somebody will pay in the future. If it's Netflix, that's pay TV; if it's YTTV, that's pay TV; if it's Max+, that's, well, you get it. It's like when steam engine trains were replaced by diesel trains, you still payed for the ride, just to a different provider.
 
Yeah, we don't need to see this clickbate over and over again. First of all the whole premise is bunk. According to them it's only pay TV if it's via a cable TV or satellite TV provider so, based on that, streaming must be free then, right? Because if it's not free then it is, in fact, pay TV. Oh, wait, it isn't free! It's ALL pay TV, you just write the check to a different company. That phoney baloney headline would mean, if it had any possibility of being true, that 62% of US homes will have no TV (even antenna TV isn't free and watch out for ATSC 3.0's ability to scramble) by 2027. Yeah, right. Come on folks, somebody is paying now and somebody will pay in the future. If it's Netflix, that's pay TV; if it's YTTV, that's pay TV; if it's Max+, that's, well, you get it. It's like when steam engine trains were replaced by diesel trains, you still payed for the ride, just to a different provider.

You can make the argument that YTTV and Sling can be lumped in with the Cable/Sat category, but I wouldn't consider Netflix or Disney+ type services to be traditional "pay tv".
 
First of all the whole premise is bunk. According to them it's only pay TV if it's via a cable TV or satellite TV provider so, based on that, streaming must be free then, right?
It said right in the article it was about Pay Live TV, not the Netflix like services, from the link-

The rate of subscriber decline in the traditional TV bundle hit a milestone in the third quarter of 2022, when the number of pay-TV households fell below half the total number of U.S homes for the first time.
 
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Just read this-

Comcast has raised the price of its Broadcast TV fee to $31.25 a month on top of the advertised price. Not only that, but you will also find in many areas a $9.10 RSN fee.

So $40.35, plus other fees, so if you have a DVR box ( just one), plus all those little line items things they add, like Franchise Fees, you are looking at, roughly, $70 in extra charges, which is about the same price of YouTube TV.

I have been saying that Traditional Providers ( Cable/Satellite) have 2023/2024 to fix things and hopefully slow down/stop cord cutting, but it looks like they will continue to do the things that have pushed subscribers away.