Report shows 95,000 TV cord-cutters last year

Convergence Consulting Group Ltd. says in a new report that Canada lost 95,000 TV subscribers in 2014, the second year of decline, while TV subscriber revenue continued to grow. A summary of the report posted to the Convergence website said TV providers saw subscription revenue of $9.1 billion in 2014, up two per cent from the previous year. The number of lost subscribers is above the 32,000 Convergence predicted in last year’s report. The company also re-stated the change in TV subscribers in 2013, from a previously reported gain of 2,000 to a decline of 13,000 in this year’s report. A compilation by The Wire Report of the publicly available earnings reports of Canada’s biggest telecom companies showed that the overall number of TV subscribers fell by 32,000 in 2014, following the addition of 24,000 subscribers in 2013. Convergence said that the number of households without a traditional TV subscriptions rose to 3.06 million in 2014, from 2.85 million in 2013. Telcos, such as Telus Corp. and BCE Inc., will continue to add TV customers at the expense of the cable and satellite companies, Convergence predicted in the report, improving their market share to 21.5 per cent at the end of 2015 from 18.5 per cent at the end of last year. Cable's share of TV customers will decline to 59.4 per cent of the TV market from 61.2 per cent at the end of 2014, the group said, while satellite will fall to 19.1 per cent from 20.3 per cent. The group said broadband subscriptions rose by 408,000 in 2014. Telcos “continue to add more subscribers” per year in broadband services than the cable companies, including Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc., Convergence said. The report said that residential landline-phone customers declined by seven per cent last year, and a decline by the same proportion is expected this year. It said 27.5 per cent of Canadian households were "wireless-only" at the end of 2014, and that should rise to 31 per cent by the end of this year.

Report shows 95,000 TV cord-cutters last year

Brief | April 13, 2015

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Report shows 95,000 TV cord-cutters last year

Brief | April 13, 2015

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