LETTER FROM THE AMERICAS
“We anticipate most telco TV users, with their fibre-to-the-premises connections, will mass-migrate to a streaming video service in the next 10 years,” the S&P analysts concluded in their report. They project that the telcos could wind up with just 1.2 million video subs by 2035. In other words, none of the big U.S. wireline providers are faring well with video now. Largely as a result, streaming video providers have taken their place as the kings of the pay TV market. “There’s been a huge amount of change” in the U.S. video marketplace, noted Mohammed Hamza, research director for S&P’s Kagan consumer tech and telecoms unit. He noted that Netflix and other leading streamers are now the ones setting the market trends. Take YouTube TV, for instance. Topping out at 9.3 million video subscribers last December, it has more than tripled its subscriber base over the last six years and stands poised to become the largest North American pay-TV provider by 2027, passing the two biggest U.S. cable operators, Comcast and Charter. “YouTube TV has evolved into a full pay- TV bundle, integrating linear channels, premium networks and marquee sports properties such as NFL Sunday Ticket,” wrote Marua Rua Agyete, head of media and entertainment at Omdia. “This is not just another streaming service. It is the new face of U.S. pay TV.” Not surprisingly, then, Nielsen Research reported that streaming video viewing surpassed the combination of broadcast and cable TV viewing in the U.S. for the first time last year. Specifically, The Gauge, Nielsen’s monthly report on U.S. TV viewing trends across multiple platforms, found that the streaming video players scored a record 44.8% of total TV usage in May 2025, surpassing the 44.2% registered by broadcast and cable channels combined. YouTube TV led the way among the streamers, followed by Netflix and Disney’s trio of Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu SVOD services. Calling this development “an historic TV milestone,” Nielsen acknowledged that streaming’s rise to the top could be just a short-term aberration. But it still expects streaming to take the lead over legacy pay-TV over the long term. “While the milestone of streaming exceeding traditional TV viewership is almost certainly not permanent, it presumably will be in the near future,” the report concludes.
suffered substantial sub losses in the always weak winter quarter. Leading the way down, traditional pay-TV providers (which includes cable operators, telcos and satellite TV providers) lost nearly 1.1 million video customers, dropping their combined total to 40.9 million. As usual, cable operators suffered the brunt of those losses, shedding 577,000 video customers. Although that result marked an improvement from the industry’s massive loss of 863,000 subs a year earlier, it did not exactly spark joy in U.S. cable circles. “We are not winning in the marketplace in a way that is commensurate with the strength of the network and connectivity products,” Mike Cavanaugh, Comcast president and co-CEO, conceded late last year. Speaking at a media conference last December, he stressed that operators must adopt a “challenger mentality” in today’s increasingly competitive video market. Sleeping satellite If it’s any consolation for U.S. cablecos, the trend lines look even more dire for their long-time satellite TV rivals DirecTV and EchoStar. Combined, the two satellite players dropped 399,000 video customers in the first quarter, lowering their collective total to 10.4 million. While that marked an improvement over the 456,000 video subs the two lost a year earlier, market analysts don’t view that performance as particularly promising. “There’s no sign whatsoever that the satellite operators are righting the ship,” wrote MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, whose firm produces a quarterly “Cord-Cutting Monitor” report. “Instead, it looks for all the world the satellite TV industry is simply… going away.” Streamers lapping their rivals Similarly, the three major U.S. telcos – AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon – combined to lose about 115,000 video subscribers in the period, albeit improving somewhat from their loss of 136,000 TV customers a year earlier. The latest loss sliced their collective video sub total to les than 3.8 million, well down from their peak a few years ago, with more losses expected to follow.
It looks for all the world the satellite TV industry is simply… going away.
Volume 48 No.23 SEPTEMBER 2026
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