MUMBAI: The third quarter of 2018 saw a slight fall in pay TV subscribers, making it the first ever marked changed and probably a point of worry for cable and DTH operators world over.

The decrease was by 0.11 million, down by 0.02 per cent, as per informitv’s Multiscreen Index reported by Advanced Television.

Out of the top 100 services, just 43 saw gains including India’s Dish TV where it saw an increase of 200,000. This helped keep up the overall gain in the Asia Pacific region by 1.22 million. With a total of 23.5 million subscribers, Dish TV led the world pack in terms of subscriber numbers with about 23.5 million subscribers after its merger with Videocon d2h.

Numbers fell for the first time in the Americas, Asia, and MENA regions. Globally, cable saw a cut of 0.22 million while DTH lost 0.9 million.  In the US, AT&T U-Verse was the only one to witness a rise in subscribers by just 13,000.

Almost all quarters, to date, have seen a 1 per cent rise stay steady. Analysts will continue to see whether coming quarters will see more decline or a revival is in sight.