Although the pay-TV subscriber market continues to be larger than the broadband subscriber market, that gap continues to narrow, per the latest data from Leichtman Research Group (LRG).
The results indicate that the top broadband providers – representing roughly 94% of the market – added about 1.2 million subscribers in Q1 2015, bringing their total to 88.5 million. Cable companies had a particularly strong quarter, with a net gain of slightly more than 1 million subscribers, their largest net add since Q1 2008.
By comparison, they didn’t fare so well with pay-TV subscribers. Indeed, the top 9 cable companies shed roughly 60,000 video subscribers in Q1, though that wasn’t much worse than in Q1 2014, when they lost around 50,000.
Overall, though, the top pay-TV providers (representing about 95% of the market) had a weak first quarter, adding only around 7,000 subscribers overall. That’s despite this being traditionally a strong quarter: last year, these providers added more than 250,000 video subscribers in Q1.
Indeed, the top telephone providers (+140,000) had the fewest net adds since Q4 2006, while the top DBS companies (+52,000) had the fewest of any first quarter since LRG began tracking the pay-TV market.