US Cord Cutting Q3 2018 SVOD Users the Driving Force

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The 20,000 Foot View: Cord cutting is now a firmly entrenched component of the pay-TV business, especially in the US. Pay-TV providers of all kinds continue to shed subscribers each quarter, all against the backdrop of a continually expanding streaming market. However, the real story behind cord cutting is not how many people are doing it, but who is doing it. In this column we highlight findings from MIDiA’s        Cord Cutting report, deep diving into cord cutting both from a supply and from a demand side, profiling cord cutters and identifying which streaming apps are having the most impact.

Key Findings

• US cord cutting in        2018 totalled one million, with        million lost from satellite,        million from cable and        million from telco
• Compared to        2017, satellite has lost        of its subscriber base, telco        and cable       
       of US cord cutters in        2018 were Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) users
• A blended mix of streaming services is becoming enough to make pay-TV subscribers switch:        of cord cutters have more than one SVOD subscription
       cord cutters had an average age of        while cord shavers had an average age of       
• Amazon Prime Video had the highest rate of both cord cutting –        - and cord shaving –        - among SVOD users
• Hulu had the second highest cord cutting rates –        - but only the seventh highest cord shaving rate –       
       of        cord cutters were binge watchers, illustrating the impact streaming behaviour has when it becomes embedded        Netflix users were cord cutters in        2018 
• Cord cutters are more than three as likely as overall consumers to stream sports for free
• Fans of SVOD originals over index for cord cutting, for example        of Man in the High Castle fans were cord cutters in        compared to        of Game of Thrones fans

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Altice, Amazon Prime Video, AT&T, Atlantic Broadband, Cable ONE, Cablevision, CBS All Access, Charter Communications, Comcast, DirecTV, DISH Network, Frontier, HBO Now, Hulu, Mediacom, Netflix, Sling, Suddenlink, U-verse, Verizon Fios, YouTube