Nielsen: 1.5M U.S. households cut the cord in 2011

One thing seems certain: the number of US homes subscribing to a cable, satellite or telephone company for a multichannel TV bundle isn’t growing as fast as it used to.

In fact, belying several earlier research studies, which said growth of U.S. multi-channel services has slowed significantly but not stopped, Nielsen’s latest “Cross-Platform Report” says the number of U.S. homes paying a multichannel provider for TV services last year actually declined by 1.5 million, or about 1.5 percent. Subscription gains made by telco providers AT&T and Verizon (about 1.1 million) and satellite service companies DirecTV and Dish (added 280,000 subscribers) could not offset the over 2.9 million subscriptions lost by cable providers, Nielsen reports.