This may fall under the category of you already knew this, but Americans now have even fewer traditional pay-TV options. According to the last FCC report on competition in pay TV the number of Americans who have access to four different pay-TV options (cable, telco, and satellite) decreased from 38.1% in 2014 to just 17.9% in 2017.
A lot of this consolidation comes from AT&T purchasing DIRECTV and Spectrum buying Time Warner Cable and others. Now this trend of consolidation shows no sign of slowing down because there are rumors of everything from Verizon looking to buy a cable network to a host of smaller mergers. So don’t be surprised if you try to look at going back to cable and you find out that you have fewer options.
Maybe it’s no surprise, but even with fewer TV subscribers traditional pay-TV revenue increased in 2015 to $115.6 billion up from $112.7 billion in 2014.
Now we wait for this year’s report on pay-TV competition in the United States from the FCC. It will be interesting to see how it grades it as the number of live TV streaming services has started to take off. Right now there is a long list of streaming services trying to take on traditional pay TV. DIRECTV NOW, Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, Hulu, YouTube TV, and others all aim at trying to offer something new and different.
While the number of traditional pay-TV providers is dropping, streaming is bringing in a new group of competitors to the market. The next report on pay-TV competition is currently under way and is planned to be released in 2018.
Source: Light Reading
Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews.
Need cord cutting tech support? Join our new Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.