Pay TV Industry Customer Counts Nearly Unchanged in Third Quarter

NY - Third-quarter earnings season saw large openly exchanged cable, satellite television and telecom companies add about 146,000 pay TV customers, while customers rejected minimally industry-wide when including more compact and independently-held firms. Most on Wall Street begin to see the trends as positive among cord cutting fears that began about last year, despite the fact that they are saying current industry momentum is certainly not to brag about. Starting the most recent quarterly earnings season, Wall Street experts had a variety of different anticipation, but agreed that video customer trends may likely improve within the year-ago trends and also over another-quarter drop. Based on research firm SNL Kagan, whose information is broadly used, the U.S. multi-funnel world lost 32,000 customers within the third quarter, falling from the total of 100.113 million in the finish of June to 100.081 million in the finish of September. "The pay TV industry seems to possess returned back from the dismal second quarter," stated Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker inside a recent report. "The pay TV industry published strong results, while Netflix lost 800,000 customers which we feel should help assuage investor concerns that "cord-cutting" is definitely an immediate secular challenge. Nevertheless, we feel the pay TV industry will probably remain a zero-sum game one of the incumbent gamers before the economy and housing industry more be fully cured.Inch Barclays Capital analyst James Ratcliffe's conclusion from third-quarter earnings season similarly was that housing weakness remains the dominant element in video sub performance. "U.S. pay TV subscribership was basically flat within the third quarter," he authored in the review. "We still think that the minimal pay TV customer growth we're seeing within the U.S. marketplace is mainly driven by conditions within the housing industry instead of cord cutting, as transmission rates, whilst not rising, are basically unchanged." Ryvicker believed another-quarter lack of 31,000 customers among all video operators - private and public. That even compares to her calculation of 464,000 sub deficits within the second quarter, or 458,000 based on data from SNL Kagan. The slight decline seemed to be much better than the 119,000 sub drop, based on Ryvicker, or 130,000 based on SNL Kagan, within the third quarter of 2010. "The advance was mainly because of better satellite (+216,000, versus -109,000 within the second quarter and +145,000 within the third quarter 2010) and cable (-584,000, versus -771,000 within the second quarter and -741,000 within the third quarter of 2010) results, each of which were on a consecutive and year-over-year basis," Ryvicker stated. "Telco adds (+337,000 versus +416,000 within the second quarter and +477,000 within the third quarter of 2010) were less strong." But Ryvicker contended that "this may be a 1-time 'lip" like a strike at Verizon would be a continue results. Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable firm, and Time Warner Cable were among individuals cable operators that reported narrower declines within the latest period. http://world wide web.hollywoodreporter.com/news/time-warner-cable-third-quarter-25... Within the satellite television space, strong gains from DirecTV due simply to the promotion of free National football league Sunday Ticket to new customers offset a 111,000 decline at Dish Network, which arrived greater than the usual 29,000 year-ago loss, but was much better than some observers' anxiety about a 150,000 customer decrease. DirecTV's addition of 327,000 U.S. pay TV clients within the third quarter in comparison with 174,000 around-ago period and marked the business's most powerful third-quarter showing in seven years. "DirecTV was an anomaly because of their...National football league Sunday Ticket for any year promo," informed Burns Tabak analyst David Joyce though. Overall, "the nearly 400,000 customers who left pay TV within the second quarter didn't return, nor has unemployment enhanced," he added. Pay TV industry customer amounts dropped the very first time ever within the second quarter of 2010, with SNL Kagan confirming a 246,000 decline, starting off the cord cutting debate over whether U.S. customers were searching to cheaper online choices to replace their monthly pay TV bills. The drop within the third quarter of this past year appeared to verify investor fears, however two quarters of growth settled concerns. Experts expect the to determine no major moves either in direction within the near-term. "Essentially, we still see the U.S. pay TV market as stable, but even without the coming back to some more normal degree of household formation (a million-1.5 million each year), the marketplace remains essentially zero sum," Ratcliffe came to the conclusion. Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com Twitter: @georgszalai Related Subjects Comcast DirecTV