NPD Backpedals: Says Report on Premium TV Decline Shouldn’t Have Mentioned Showtime, HBO

NPD Group is backing away from a recent study that claimed the rise of subscription video on demand services such as Netflix may be leading to a decline in premium cable subscriptions and says that its findings may have been misstated.

After HBO, Starz and Showtime all hit back at its conclusions, arguing that were experiencing customer growth, not defect, the market research firm was forced to clarify its data. In a statement, NPD said it “…should not have called out declines in subscribers for specific premium TV channels, HBO and Showtime.” “Upon further examination of the results, there is data supporting the conclusion that individual subscribers are either subscribing to more channels, or adding channels over time,” NPD said in a statement. “In that case, faithful premium channel subscribers are becoming more so – which would be consistent with the subscription increases being reported by individual channels.”