SNL Kagan Looks at US Multichannel and European SVOD

SNL Kagan released the latest report on the US multichannel subscriber report and said that the combined cable, Direct-broadcast-satellite (DBS) and telecommunications (telco) sectors lost 430,000 video customers during the period. DBS ended in positive territory, but telco again weighed heavily on the multichannel universe. Meanwhile, the cable sector continues to show progress in mitigating losses.

For the space, the third-quarter decline brings the year-to-date drop to 1.3 million, which is the the largest ever drop for the first nine months of the year.

Additional highlights from SNL Kagan’s 3rd-quarter U.S. Multichannel Subscriber report include:

• Cable operators lost 94,000 total video customers: the platform’s best third-quarter performance since 2006. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the sector cut the 2015 decline in half. For the interval, this is the industry’s best results since 2007.
• DBS gained 46,000 subscribers, benefiting from AT&T’s strategic shift away from U-verse and towards DirecTV. The segment now is in position to deliver gains for the year.
• The planned wind down of AT&T U-verse continues to pressure telco subscriptions, down an aggregate 382,000 in the third quarter. Year-to-date, multichannel video subscribers served by the telco segment are down nearly 1.2 million.
• Factoring in the estimated 925,000 customers for DISH Network’s Sling TV service, the trailing twelve-month multichannel decline is reduced to 822,000.

Separately, the company said that the OTT subscription video on demand (SVOD) market in Europe will grow from $2.17 billion to $3.76 billion in 2020, a CAGR of 14.6%. Kagan said that the rate of adoption is lower than in the US because of the lack of localixed content offered by the SVOD services, and partly due to the wide availability of free alternatives.