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The U.S. cable and satellite pay TV services are set to face subscription declines in the coming years as their remaining viewers increasingly shift to over-the-top (OTT) streaming services. Complicating matters are the younger viewers who have never even subscribed to a traditional pay TV service and likely never will. Those factors are leading to a dramatic decline in total U.S. pay TV household penetration from the industry’s halcyon days of 2009-10, when penetration exceeded 85%, to 2023’s expected household penetration of only 42%, which will drop even further to 32% in 2028, according to GlobalData, a data and analytics company.
GlobalData’s latest report, “United States Pay-TV Forecast,” reveals that the total linear US pay TV subscriptions will fall below 50 million by 2025, as viewers continue turning away from cable TV, satellite TV, and broadband-delivered IPTV subscriptions.
Winning the viewers’ attention are ad-supported streaming video (AVOD) and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) services like The Roku Channel, Tubi, Peacock and Pluto TV; virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) like YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV; as well as streaming video on demand (SVOD) services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, either with or without ads.
Viewers who are ending traditional pay TV subscriptions in favor of streaming services are considered cord-cutters or cord-shifters, while young adults who have never subscribed to cable, satellite TV or IPTV make up the cord-nevers.
Jesús Romo, GlobalData principal analyst, said: “Younger generations tend to adopt new technologies and services like video