Q1'19 multichannel market marked by slowing virtual growth
Details
Editor
| 25 May 2019

Long touted at the key to traditional operators’ plans to fend off the attack of SVOD and OTT services, virtual multichannel services look to have hit a growth plateau, research from Kagan has found.

The study revealed that subscriber growth slowed in the first-quarter 2019, increasing 5.8% from the end of 2018. This compares with an 11.8% compound quarterly growth rate between fourth-quarter 2017 and fourth-quarter 2018. Moreover, Kagan calculates that the segment reached 7.9 million subscribers as of 31 March 2019, accounting for 8.2% of the virtual and traditional total subs.

Kagan’s first-quarter US Multichannel Subscriber report also found that virtual multichannel trailblazers Sling TV and DIRECTV NOW, which account for half of the segment, continue to show signs of slowing momentum. DirecTV Now in particular notably logged a second straight quarter in negative territory.

The survey also found that the combined cable, direct broadcast satellite (DBS) and telecommunications (telco) subscriptions fell by 1.4 million, making the three-month period ending 31 March 2019 the largest single-quarter decline to date for the traditional universe.

As pointed out in other current surveys, satellite accounted for the bulk of the traditional decline. Combined quarterly net losses for DIRECTV and DISH Network continued to creep toward 1 million. Kagan’s research observed that just over two-thirds of occupied US households subscribed to traditional multichannel in the first quarter. Combining virtual and traditional subscriptions pushes the metric up to 75%.