The prolonged decline in traditional pay television subscriptions has finally paused. According to the latest Cord Cutting Monitor from MoffettNathanson, the third quarter of 2025 produced a net gain of 303,000 subscribers across multichannel video programming distributors and virtual multichannel video programming distributors. This marks the first quarterly increase since the fourth quarter of 2017, when the industry added 318,000 subscribers.
The reversal stands in sharp contrast to the heavy losses recorded earlier in the year. The first quarter of 2025 saw 2.455 million subscribers abandon pay TV packages, followed by another 1.054 million departures in the second quarter. The sudden swing into positive territory during the third quarter therefore represents the most significant shift in industry momentum in nearly a decade.
Analysts attributed the uptick primarily to seasonal factors. Subscriber additions historically strengthen at the beginning of the American football season, as viewers seek access to live sports through linear channels and bundled services. Supporting data from other measurement firms reinforced the connection between sports and traditional television usage.
This comes as increasingly Cord Cutters News readers tell us they only subscribe to services like YouTube TV and Fubo during their favorite sports teams serevices. For example, signuping in the 3rd quarter of a year for college and NFL football only to cancel in the 1st quarter of the following year. The ability to easily cancel a streaming serive and start it back up again has made pay TV something you get only when you want it.
The gains were not evenly distributed across the industry. Legacy cable and satellite operators such as Comcast, Charter Communications, DirecTV, and EchoStar continued to lose customers, though at a noticeably slower pace than in previous periods. The entire net increase came from virtual MVPD platforms, led by YouTube TV and similar internet-delivered services that package linear channels. As streaming services added subscribers in the 3rd quater of 2025 Cocmast and Spectrum lost a combined 366,000 TV customers. Thgius works out to over 3,500 customers canceling Cocmast and Spectrum cable TV every day.
Despite the ongoing erosion at traditional distributors, MoffettNathanson highlighted several encouraging trends. The rate of subscriber decline for cable and satellite providers improved for the fifth consecutive quarter. Comcast recorded its smallest quarterly loss since 2022, marking eight straight quarters of decelerating declines. Charter Communications posted the most dramatic improvement among large operators, while even DirecTV and EchoStar showed modest stabilization.
Virtual MVPDs, long the only growth engine in the pay TV ecosystem, continued to expand, though their momentum has cooled considerably. The category grew at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the third quarter, identical to the pace recorded in each of the two preceding quarters. This represents the slowest expansion since the virtual MVPD model emerged roughly a decade ago.
The combination of seasonal strength, slowing traditional losses, and continued (if moderated) virtual MVPD growth produced the first aggregate subscriber increase in eight years. Industry observers cautioned that the third-quarter rebound does not necessarily signal a permanent reversal of cord-cutting trends. Historical patterns suggest that subscriber counts typically weaken again after the football season ends, and the underlying shift toward on-demand streaming platforms remains intact. Nevertheless, the data offers the traditional television sector its clearest sign of stabilization in years, even as the broader video landscape continues to fragment.
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