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This is the scariest chart in the history of cable TV

Myles Udland   

This is the scariest chart in the history of cable TV

This is the scariest chart in the history of cable TV.

Screen Shot 2015 08 18 at 10.08.55 AM

Pacific Crest

Cable subscriptions are plummeting.

What we're looking at here, via Wall Street research firm Pacific Crest, is cable subscriptions falling off a cliff.

In the first half of 2015, year-over-year growth in MPVD subscribers - which stands for "multichannel video programming distributor," or, in English, a cable company like Time Warner Cable or Comcast - went negative.

Over the last 5 years, the percent of households with cable subscriptions had been falling. But with year-over-year subscribers still seeing growth, however modest it may have been, cable companies were still able to look past what some had seen as a coming cord-cutting apocalypse.

Now, that is a reality.

In a note to clients on Tuesday, analysts at Pacific Crest had a few jarring trends for the media space, which saw stocks get hammered a few weeks ago after subscriber warnings from ESPN and Viacom.

Pacific Crest estimates that the top 8 cable providers saw subscriptions fall 463,000 in the second quarter, up from a decline of 141,000 in the same quarter last year.

The firm also estimates that the number of households with cable has fallen 10% in the last 5 years while Netflix has seen the number of households with the service nearly double to 35% from 18% since the third quarter of 2011.

But perhaps most troubling is the firm's contention that the demand for so-called "skinny bundles," or slimmed down cable packages, appears low, with Sling TV, Dish Network's "over-the-top" offering, adding less than 70,000 subscribers in the quarter by Pacific Crest's estimates.

Meanwhile, Netflix subscriber growth clocked in at 20% over the prior year in the second quarter while Amazon and Hulu saw subscribers rise 40% and 45% respectively.

Screen Shot 2015 08 18 at 10.23.58 AM

Pacific Crest

Pacific Crest wrote that these trends don't appear to be anywhere near reversing.

Notably, Amazon's Fire TV was sold out as of Tuesday.

Screen Shot 2015 08 18 at 10.05.04 AM

Amazon.com

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.

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