Cord-Cutting Record Reached in Q1, Says BTIG's Greenfield
A record level of cord cutting hit U.S. MVPDs in Q1, losses widening to nearly 1.2 million from 682,000 in the year-ago quarter, BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors. Subscriber trends are slowing for vMVPDs, too, as net additions shrank to…
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174,000 vs. 933,000. Total subscriptions of companies tracked, representing more than 90 percent of the industry, were down nearly 2 percent year over year, said the analyst, and they should begin to negatively affect broadcast and cable network programmer retransmission/affiliate revenue in Q2. “The collapse in multichannel video subscribers that we are now witnessing is caused by the unwillingness of Disney and other legacy media companies to allow distributors to create the channel packages that their consumers actually want,” said Greenfield, citing Disney’s channel bundle, now with FX and Nat Geo, which costs distributors some $17-$18 per month.