Pay-TV Users Are Bailing Faster Than Ever, Clouding Media Stocks

U.S. cable and satellite-TV providers suffered their worst first quarter of subscriber losses in history, raising fresh concerns that cord-cutting will accelerate and drag down media stocks, according to Bloomberg.

Charter, Dish, AT&T’s DirecTV and Verizon combined to lose almost half a million video subscribers in the period, as more consumers spurned the cost and clutter of traditional pay-TV packages for cheaper online alternatives. Only Comcast added customers.

The results indicate that consumers may be growing more aware of on-demand streaming services like Netflix and Amazon and the increased depth their content offerings, and that may be spurring more cord-cutting in 2017. Major pay-TV operators lost 1.4 million subscribers last year, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Walt Disney led media stocks in a meltdown in 2015 after acknowledging that its flagship ESPN sports network was losing subscribers as viewers traded down to lower-priced TV options. The stock has mostly recovered.

Consumers are also getting more knowledgeable about online live-TV services as well. At least a half dozen companies, including Hulu, AT&T, Dish, Sony and YouTube are convinced they can lure people back to live TV packages by offering a slimmer selection of channels at a lower cost than the average cable package. They’ve also all tried to improve upon the presentation of on-demand programs.