Q2 Cord-Cutting Update: Most U.S. Operators Bled Fewer Customers, But Revenue Is Beginning To Take a Serious Hit

To quote Ernest Hemmingway, the U.S. pay TV business seems to be going broke gradually, then suddenly, with Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global taking $9.1 billion and $6 billion Q2 write-downs on their vastly devalued cable networks, and revenue declining more than 10% for EchoStar’s combined pay TV business, just to name a few ghastly metrics.

But the business received somewhat of a reprieve in the second quarter, with only two of the eight major platforms reporting metrics losing more subscribers from April through June than they did in the same period of 2023.

No. 1 operator Charter Communications did lose 393,000 TV customers, marked year-over-year worsening. However, some of that attrition was probably tied up with Charter’s record quarterly broadband losses , which were in part driven by the defunding of the Affordable Connectivity Program.

But for No. 2 U.S. operator Comcast, the rate of cord-cutting decelerated in the second quarter to 11.9%, the first time in five quarters it has dipped below 12%.

Meanwhile, Sling TV returned to customer growth for the first time in three quarters.

But again, cord-cutting’s impact has proliferated beyond the mere earnings line specifying subscribers, with other operators besides Dish reporting accelerated revenue declines.

Comcast’s revenue from delivering linear video service declined by 7.8% year over year to $6.781 billion. That compared to a 5.6% sales drop for the same period of 2023.

Charter saw linear video revenue decline by 7.7% in Q2 to $3.867 billion. Last year for the second quarter, Charter reported a 6.6% revenue decline.

Notably, we still don't have Q2 estimates for what has been the U.S. pay TV business’s fastest-growing platform, YouTube TV. One equity analyst we asked on Thursday said a YouTube TV estimate should be published in the coming days.