Pay TV subscribers worldwide decline by 2 million

1.88 million would have unsubscribed from these services in America, while the Europe, Middle East and Africa region would show a loss of 66,000 subscribers. Asia-Pacific would barely gain 460 subscribers.

The report Multiscreen Informitv which analyzes trends among a hundred leading pay television providers around the world, reflects in its latest edition a net loss of 2.09 million in the number of subscribers to these services worldwide throughout the third quarter of 2019.

1.88 million would have unsubscribed from these services in America, while the region of Europe, Middle East and Africa would show a loss of 66,000 subscribers. Asia-Pacificor it would barely gain 460 subscribers.

The top 10 service providers in the US lost 1.67 million TV subscribers between them in the third quarter of 2019, with a cumulative loss of 5.53 million over 12 months, although they still hold on to 78.73 million.

In Europe, Sky had a net loss of subscribers for the first time, losing 98,000 in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy, having gained 304,000 in the previous quarter, leaving it with 23.92 million.

The biggest losses were for AT&T Premium TV, which includes DirecTV and U-Verse customers, with a loss of 1.16 million in the third quarter. Thus, it would have a base of 20.42 million television subscribers, a figure slightly lower than that of Comcast.

Comcast, que ahora es propietaria de Sky, tiene 44,34 millones de clientes de televisión en todo el mundo, lo que la sitúa por delante de AT&T con 34,87 millones.

The biggest gain was German Vodafonea, after the acquisition of Unitymedia of Liberty Global. It currently has 13.71 million television subscribers, although these include around 4.7 million basic cable customers who were not previously included in the Index.

Vodafone now has 18.04 million television customers in total, making it the fifth largest group in the world by number of television subscribers, after América Móvil and Multichoice.

Finally, it should be noted that although 41 of the 100 services analyzed by Multiscreen Informitv reported gains in the number of subscribers, these were offset by losses elsewhere, resulting in a net loss of 0.46% of the total subscriber base in the third quarter.