Pace Of Cord-Cutting Growth Slows in Q3: Analyst

The US pay-TV industry took it on the chin in the third quarter, but the punch was pulled somewhat by the fact that the pace of cord-cutting evidently slowed.

That’s according to the analysis of MoffettNathanson Research partner and senior analyst Craig Moffett, who issued a note on the matter soon after Dish Network posted surprisingly strong third quarter results. The US pay-TV industry shed 113,000 subscribers in the period, leaving year-over-year growth at -0.2%, matched with the year-ago rate of contraction. “Hallelujah. Score one for the upstarts,” Moffett wrote. “Despite the modest worsening of subscriber loses in Q3, it appears that the pace of cord cutting actually slowed in the quarter.” This comes after the pay-TV industry lost 380,000 subs in the typically weak second quarter. In his second quarter analysis of pay TV results in August 2013, Moffett estimated that 911,000 US homes had cut the cord over the previous 12-month period, leading him to surmise that the cord-cutting is no longer an “urban myth.”