Cable companies now serve up more Internet than cable TV, study shows

By Alex Tretbar August 18, 2014

pay tv providers now provide internet cord cutter — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The cable TV and Internet landscape is a rapidly changing one, and it’s become increasingly clear to all parties involved that cord-cutting plays a significant role in the transformation. New data released this week by the Leichtman Research Group shows that during Q2 2014 major pay-TV providers lost about 300,000 net video subscribers, but added roughly 385,000 new high-speed Internet subscribers. This year top U.S. cable providers have passed an important milestone that has been anticipated for quite some time: they now have more broadband subscribers than traditional pay-TV subscribers.

Related: Pay-TV operators lost more subscribers than they added for the first time last year

The seventeen largest cable and telephone providers in the U.S., which represent about 93 percent of the market, now account for over 85.9 million subscribers. Top cable companies – including Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, Cablevision, and others – have nearly 50.7 million broadband subscribers, while top telephone companies like AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink account for the other 35.2 million subscribers. The latest increase in broadband subscribers amounted to 130 percent of those added in Q2 2013 – over double what the big boys of the industry added last year. In other words: cable is shrinking, and broadband is on the rise.

The trend has finally pushed the forecast of increasing broadband subscribers ahead of Pay-TV subscribers. At the end of Q2 2014, top cable providers had about 49,915,000 broadband subscribers and only 49,910,000 cable TV subscribers. While that may be a minuscule majority, it’s easy to see the writing on the wall. As time goes on, it appears more and more customers are deciding to nix traditional pay-TV models, choosing instead to find their news, media, and video entertainment online.

One other interesting piece of data from Leichtman’s research is the fact that top cable companies were responsible for a whopping 99 percent of the net broadband additions for the quarter – telecommunications companies made up the meager remaining 1 percent. It appears that, for now at least, Pay-TV giants like Comcast and its proposed bride Time Warner Cable are in the drivers seat when it comes to offering the Internet service of choice.

Editors' Recommendations

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Alex Tretbar, audio/video intern, is a writer, editor, musician, gamer and sci-fi nerd raised on EverQuest and Magic: The…

Audio / Video

LG’s massive 325-inch DVLED TV costs more than three Ferrari SF90s

LG DVLED Extreme Home Cinema TV.

If you've got a hankering for a huge TV and you have a correspondingly huge budget, you now have a new option: LG's new line of LG DVLED Extreme Home Cinema TVs are available in sizes ranging from a mild 81-inches all the way up to a gigantic 325 inches. LG's prices are equally gargantuan: You'll pay $70,000 for the smallest model, but the biggest model is exponentially more expensive at $1,700,000 -- about three times the price of the SF90, the most powerful Ferrari road car ever produced. If those numbers don't faze you, you can order your DVLED Extreme Home Cinema model starting today.

The TVs use direct-view LED (DVLED) technology, similar to the kind used by Samsung's The Wall and Sony's Crystal LED displays, where individual microLEDs are used for each pixel, offering many of the self-illuminating advantages of OLED TVs, but with greater brightness, more colors, ultrawide viewing angles, and of course, huge screen sizes. Unlike regular LG TVs, the DVLED Extreme Home Cinema are aimed at the high-end luxury home market, so they won't be sold in regular retail locations. Instead, these displays are available exclusively through a custom installation dealer program.

Deals

Here’s how you can sign up for Sling TV for free right now

A man watching Sling TV in his living room.

If you're ready to cut the cord, going full-streaming is the best option. You'll want to keep an eye on the latest smart entertainment and streaming devices, too, or even Roku deals for one of the best plug-and-play smart home systems around.

Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, all those services are great but what if you want access to live TV? You can opt for a Sling subscription, or if you're on the fence, you can give Sling Free a try. You get free access to thousands of movies and TV shows, and you don't need a credit card, nor do you need to register. Check it out!

Audio / Video

Why 2021 could be the beginning of the end for cable TV

end of cable tv

Wait. Yet another op-ed crowing about the death of cable TV? Haven’t we heard this like a million times before? Yes, it’s true: Digital Trends, along with virtually every other publication and pundit that observes technology has been making this prediction on a regular basis for years. But here and now, in 2021, the end of cable has a deeper feeling of inevitability than ever before. Here’s why.

The pandemic, which began in earnest one year ago, has forced many of us to rethink how we live our day-to-day lives. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to remain employed have had to rethink how we work, parents and caregivers have had to rethink how to manage their children's education, and we’ve all been forced to drastically rethink how we entertain ourselves.