Study: US Posted First Full-Year Pay TV Subscriber Drop in 2013

The US pay TV industry in 2013 recorded its first-ever full-year subscriber decline, SNL Kagan said in confirming what industry watchers had previously predicted.

Cable TV, satellite TV and telecom firms offering video services collectively shed 251,000 subscribers in 2013, led by continued cable losses, the research firm estimated. The industry added 40,000 video subscriptions in the fourth quarter, helped by a return to video sub growth at cable giant Comcast, but it wasn't enough to make up for losses earlier in the year.

As of the end of the year, the number of pay TV subscribers dipped to approximately 100 million, according to SNL Kagan. Losses from cable operators again fueled the overall drop. SNL Kagan estimates cable operators lost nearly 2 million video subscribers in 2013 and 388,000 in the fourth quarter to end the year with fewer than 54.4 million basic video subscribers.