Cable television companies are still losing customers... in droves.
That's the big takeaway from last quarter's fiscal results for the industry, anyway. All told, another 1.7 million people in the U.S. cut the cord during the second quarter. The contraction hasn't altered its pace since before, during, and now after the COVID-19 pandemic. And nothing credibly suggests these cancellations will slow down anytime soon.
If you're a shareholder of Comcast (CMCSA +0.27%), Charter Communications (CHTR +2.48%), or any other company operating a cable TV business, you might want to buckle up. Indeed, you may want to find a healthy exit point sooner than later.
More of the same
The graphic below tells the tale. Led by Comcast and Charter, the nation's six biggest cable television companies collectively shed nearly 1.6 million paying customers during the three-month stretch ending in June. Throwing in the continued attrition from smaller names like Frontier, the figure inches up to 1.7 million.
Counting just the mainstream traditional and satellite cable names, only 56.3 million U.S. households are now paying for cable television. That's down from more than 85 million at this point in 2018.
Data source: All data provided directly from the companies cited on the chart, with the exception of DirecTV's subscriber numbers, which are provided by Leichtman Research Group. Chart by author.
Adding streaming cable platforms like Alphabet's (GOOGL +0.42%) (GOOG +0.25%) YouTube TV and Dish Network's (DISH +0.00%) Sling TV to the mix cranks the total household count up to 72 million domestic cable customers, according to numbers from Leichtman Research Group.
Even so, this alternative (and usually cheaper) form of cable is now facing its own headwinds. YouTube TV's growth isn't offsetting every other platform's customer losses.
Data source: All data is provided directly from the companies cited on the chart. Chart by author.
And let there be no mistake -- traditional cable customers aren't watching more cable TV in the meantime. The latest numbers from Nielsen indicate that for the first time ever, cable and broadcast programming accounted for less than half of what people watched on their television sets in July. Conversely (but not surprisingly) streaming content notched another record usage on U.S. television sets last month, nearing 39% of time spent in front of the TV.
Data source: Nielsen. Chart by author.
The remaining "other" is mostly video gaming.
No cable television company or its shareholders can afford to pretend these trends don't pose an enormous problem for the traditional cable business, and for that matter, broadcast networks like Comcast's NBC.
Missing out on most of the cord-cutting shift
There are remedies. Take Comcast's Peacock, for instance. Rather than making an effort to curb cord-cutting, Peacock positions Comcast to collect those consumers canceling cable and looking for streaming entertainment. Dish Network's Sling TV arguably mainstreamed the idea of a smaller, cheaper cable-like bundle delivered as a streaming product. Charter is co-owner of ad-supported streaming service platform Xumo, along with Comcast.
Cable's content providers are also answering the call. After all, their fates are largely intertwined with those of cable service providers. CBS parent Paramount now boasts 61 million paying customers for streaming service Paramount+. ABC parent Walt Disney (DIS 0.68%) of course owns and operates Disney+, ESPN+, and most of Hulu. Fox's Tubi now regularly entertains on the order of 64 million viewers per month.
Even so, none of these streaming platforms being operated by studios, broadcast networks, and cable companies are actually gaining market share. Nielsen's latest report also illustrates that market-leading Netflix (NFLX 0.51%), YouTube, and Amazon's Prime are the only streaming services now reliably gaining share. Peacock, Disney+, Hulu, and Paramount's Pluto TV are stuck in neutral in terms of the amount of total time they're being watched... despite streaming's overall market share growth.
Data source: Nielsen. Chart by author.
Again, it's a trend that's too troubling to ignore. Several studios' intended alternatives to cable programming -- and replacements of cable's waning revenue -- aren't actually stemming the tide in a meaningful way.
Cable companies' stocks remain tough to own
Never say never. Consumers aren't watching less television. They're just shifting how and what they watch. It's still possible today's cable powerhouses could be tomorrow's (proverbially speaking) streaming powerhouses. In the meantime, most of today's cable powerhouses are today's and tomorrow's broadband powerhouses.
That's not the way things are presently shaping up, though. None of the growth leaders among streaming outfits like Netflix and YouTube are the nation's top cable players. Indeed, very few of streaming's higher-growth names are even owned by the studios and networks with the most to lose from the ongoing demise of the cable TV business. That's Paramount and Comcast.
Meanwhile, the U.S. broadband internet market itself may be nearing its peak. Numbers from Leichtman indicate that 89% of U.S. households already subscribe to a broadband service. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for continued expansion.
Bottom line? With more questions than answers, it remains difficult to be excited about owning any stocks directly -- or even indirectly -- exposed to the cable TV business, or for that matter, the broadband business.
