YouTube TV has been dominating cord cutting for some time now. Can anyone catch them in popularity or subscribers? In 2023, YouTube TV was the only major TV service to add more than 200,000 subscribers when looking at cable TV or streaming. YouTube TV ended 2023 adding 1.9 million subscribers—far more than the 100,000 subscribers Hulu + Live TV added or the 173,000 Fubo added.
How popular is YouTube TV in the second quarter of 2024? We surveyed more than 500 of our readers asking them to pick what live TV streaming service they thought was best. Here is a breakdown of the live TV streaming services results according to our readers.
- YouTube TV 57%
- Sling TV 11%
- Hulu with Live TV 10%
- DIRECTV STREAM 8%
- Philo 7%
- Frndly 4%
- Fubo 3%
Clearly, YouTube TV is connecting with cord cutters in a way that is helping it stand out. Yet many cord cutters do not subscribe to a live TV streaming service. According to a survey we took about a month ago of more than 1,000 readers, 41.7% of our readers do not pay for a live TV streaming service, which is a slight increase compared to the same period in the fall 2023. This lines up with what the Leichtman Research Group found: almost 7 million Americans canceled a satellite or cable TV service in 2023 but only 1.9 million switched to a live TV streaming service.
Viewers who are not sports fans are discovering that they don’t need a live TV streaming service. As more networks put their content into on-demand services like Disney+ and Paramount+, viewers are finding on-demand fits their lifestyle and preferences.
Have you gone on-demand only? Let us know why you picked a particular service for your live TV streaming.
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