The future of cable looks increasingly grim.
The cable TV revenues is expected to shrink to $30 billion by 2027, according to data from Pricewaterhousecoopers reported by ABC. The loss will include revenue from subscriptions and advertisements.
The firm also forecasts that by 2027, just 49.9 million — 38% — U.S. homes will get TV from cable or satellite. This is a drop from the100 million homes who had cable in 2016.
PwC’s predictions come amid cable TV’s continued struggle to compete with streaming services. In 2023 alone, multiple cable TV companies shut down and providers like Comcast and Spectrum reported losses in their respective third quarters.
PwC expects streaming services to continue growing with a 16% revenue growth by 2027, with 25% of the revenue will come from advertising. Next year, streaming subscriptions are expected to surpass $100 billion.
PwC also said ad-supported streaming will grow. This prediction is shared by other analysts as well. The number of ad-supported subscription tiers have grown over the last year, with Amazon set to introduce ads to its Prime Video service later this month.
Amid inflation growth last year, viewers increasingly turned to ad-supported video on demand and free ad-supported streaming services to save money. In addition, more on demand services like Peacock, Hulu, Paramount+ and Max reported more subscribers to their ad-supported tiers from 2022 to 2023.
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The new year has only just begun and time will tell how cable TV and streamers fare in 2024.