1/4 of US households won't have a traditional pay-TV package by the end of 2017, analysts estimate
By the end of 2017, about a quarter of US households won't have a traditional TV subscription as "cord-cutting" continues to creep up, according to a new report by The Convergence Research Group.
"We estimate 2016 saw a decline of 2.05 million US TV subscribers, 2015 saw a decline of 1.16 million, and forecast a decline of 2.11 million TV subscribers for 2017," Convergence analysts wrote in the report. All told, that would mean 24.6% of US households won't have a TV subscription from a cable, satellite, or telecom provider by the end of 2017.
Still, revenue for the industry will grow. Convergence estimates that the US cable, satellite, and telco access provider revenue grew 3% to $107.3 billion in 2016, and will reach $109.6 billion in 2017.
That's nowhere near as fast as "OTT" services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video are growing, however. Those services grew 32% to $8.3 billion in 2016, and will continue to rise rapidly over the next few years.
Here's a chart showing what Convergence expects in 2017 and 2018:
