U.S. linear OTT pay TV continues to add subscribers

Linear OTT Pay TV continues to add subscribers reaching 4.4 million subs for Q2 2017

Following Dataxis research, the Pay TV market in United States fell to 0.1% to reach 100.2 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2017 compared to the previous quarter. However, linear OTT Pay TV continue to add subscribers (+49.6% with 4.4 million subscribers) and thus contribute to the prevention of the global trend of market erosion that started several quarters ago. Traditional Pay TV market (cable, DTH and IPTV) fell to 1.59% in the second quarter of 2017 to arrive at less than 96 million subscribers.

Linear OTT began to compensate for the loss of subscribers for the Pay-TV market as from the end of 2016, occupying a growing proportion with respect to classical technologies. The actors of OTT Pay TV are becoming more numerous and several traditional operators have players in this technology. For example, Dish entered with Sling TV in 2015 and DirecTV with DirecTV Now last year while Charter and Century Link launched this technology in the second quarter of 2017. Along with these classic actors, they face competition from new Pay-TV actors like Playstation Vue and YouTube TV.