Cable Subscriptions Continue to Dive

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Leichtman Research Group (LRG) recently released the cable customer counts for the largest providers of traditional cable service at the end of the first quarter of 2022. LRG compiles most of these numbers from the statistics provided to stockholders, except for Cox, which is privately held and estimated. Leichtman says this group of companies represents 96 percent of all traditional US cable customers. The industry continues to bleed customers, losing over 1.4 million customers in the fourth quarter, up from 1.3 million customers the previous quarter. Overall, the traditional cable providers lost almost 15,900 customers every day during the quarter. Charter is still losing customers at a slower rate than everybody else in the industry and has for the past several years. He says that Charter actively points out to customers that the online alternatives cost more. The rest of the industry seems resigned to letting cable customers go. This drops the overall penetration rate of traditional TV to just above 51 percent of households. The industry has lost over fifteen million customers since the end of 2017 when traditional cable was in over 73 percent of homes.

[Doug Dawson is president of CCG Consulting.]


Cable Subscriptions Continue to Dive