Stalking the Elusive Cord-Cutter: Pay TV Grew Last Quarter

Bernstein Research’s Craig Moffett, a longtime skeptic that “cord-cutting” is a real and pervasive problem for the cable guys (at least for now), says the number of pay-TV subscribers increased in just the last three months. His numbers conflict with other reports that show evidence of cord-cutting. The easiest way to reconcile Moffett’s numbers with other reports is to note that almost all of the analyst’s data comes from the publicly traded pay-TV providers themselves — like Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon — in the reports they offer up to shareholders. Most of the other stuff you’re seeing comes from polls and surveys.