Skip to main content

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

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

Recommended Videos

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.

Alex Tretbar
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…
YouTube TV is expanding multiview to more than just sports
YouTube TV and Hulu apps on the Roku homescreen.

YouTube TV today announced that it's expanding its multiview feature — that is, the ability to watch up to four things at once — to more than just sports. You'll now be able to add in shows from the news, business, and weather categories, so you can binge on those things even more than you already are.

The expanded multiview options — good for up to give shows at once — are rolling out to all users over the summer, according to an email from Google.

Read more
YouTube TV now available as a bundle with Frontier internet
YouTube TV on Apple TV.

Customers of internet service provider Frontier can now get YouTube TV through their plan, and at a slight discount for the first year. Frontier's fiber internet customers can get $10 off YouTube TV for the first 12 months, making the country's leading streaming TV service $63, plus tax. And those who have the current Frontier TV service will get $15 off for the first 12 months. It'll be bundled with Frontier's Fiber 1 Gig service, which costs $70 a month.

The idea is that instead of paying one company for cable TV and internet, you can now pay one company for streaming TV and internet. And it's not the first time the two companies have teamed up — they had a $10 discount deal in 2021, too.

Read more
Plex now lets you skip the credits on movies and TV shows
A mid-credits scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off showing Plex's Skip Credits option.

In a move that is sure to enrage the thousands of people whose names appear at the end of our favorite movies and TV shows, Plex has introduced a new feature that lets you skip the end credits on the content in your personal library.

The feature works similarly to its Skip Intro option -- a far less controversial feature given that most subscription streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video already let you do this. With Skip Credits, the Plex Media Server uses an algorithm to detect the difference between a screen full of rolling text and a screen that has a full image of, well, not text.

Read more