Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Cord Swapping replaces Cord Cutting


Interesting data has been made public in the FCC’s annual video competition report released this past Monday.  Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other cable operators lost about 2.5 million video subscribers between 2010 and 2012. As anticipated the Satellite and Telco side of the industry are still in the growth mode for the most part.  AT&T's U-verse TV posted the biggest video subscriber gain, growing its subscription base from 3 million to 4.1 million during the same period. Verizon's FiOS TV expanded from 3.5 million to 4.5 million subscribers during the same period while DirecTV Inc. grew its subscriber base by 700,000 to 19.9 million during the same period, and Dish Network  remained flat at 14.1 million.
Total gain of 2.8 million reflects a modest net gain of 300K for the overall industry, so is it safe to assume that the feared cord cutting rumor is untrue and frankly should be renamed cord swapping.
Other note worthy items listed in the report:
 The FCC said cable operators installed 38,000 CableCARDs in retail devices such as TiVo DVRs and connected TVs in 2012.
  The number of households that rely solely on over-the-air antennas to watch TV remained flat at 11.1 million in 2012.
  Deployments of DVRs in pay TV homes increased to 50.3 million in 2012, up from 46.3 million in 2011. DVR penetration in TV homes has increased to 43.8 percent.
 More on this topic: See the FCC Report.

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