From Variety.
According to data released by research company SNL Kagan, pay TV subscriptions actually grew by 836,000 in the fourth quarter last year.
In fact, Kagan reported that Showtime alone added 330,000 subscribers during the period, bringing its total to nearly 16.5 million.[...]
HBO, which has by far the biggest subscriber base of any premium net, saw its sub count remain essentially flat during the fourth quarter at around 29 million.
Starz, meanwhile, posted an increase of about 315,000 during the period to 17.7 million.
Kagan attributed the gains to the growth of telco-based TV services, which have added 3.4 million premium TV subscribers over the last year as satellite and MSOs have experienced slow growth.
That quite interesting. I don’t have any long term subscriber data to compare that with, but premium/pay cable’s share of prime-time viewing has been on a fairly consistent downtrend for sometime. I’ll see if I can find some numbers on the long term subscriber trends.
I wonder how much of this growth is related to the “free” 3-months of premium services typically offered by Fios, cable, and satelitte companies? Do those freebies count as subscriptions? How many of those subscribers forget to cancel until the freebie has run out, and they are billed for a month of Showtime or whatnot? Techncially, then, a subscriber was added for that paid month.
clutz, I think that’s a reasonable guess. The article speculates that the growth of telco fiber TV services is a factor.
Starz has that many subscribers?
I am surprised Showtime has been able to maintain and even increase its subscriber base because they have lost access to nearly all the big mainstream movies. Of course Showtime has great original programming like Dexter and Californication. The cable companies and the like push Starz like crazy.
David, sadly this is just a one quarter snapshot. I am still looking for a long term set of data.
this kind of surprises me. I would think that in an economy where people are cutting costs that cable would be a luxury that might get cut out.
HBO must be making money hand over fist. i can’t live without my HBO.
People may be cutting costs but maybe a lot of people subscribed to cable because of the digital conversion. Maybe they figured if they are paying for it anyway, why not get some of the premium channels.
I just upgraded because my local provider offered a bundled service that ended up being less money than paying for tv, phone and internet separately. These new subscribers may be saving money that way as well.