Evidence of 'cord cutting' in Canadian traditional TV service market emerges

MUMBAI: An analysis of subscriber results from the last two fiscal quarters of Canada's publicly traded television service providers such as cable, satellite, and telephone companies shows the first concrete signs of so called "cord cutting" in the Canadian traditional TV service market, according to the latest research from Ottawa based research and consulting firm Boon Dog Professional Services.

Publicly traded TV service providers lost an estimated 5,394 TV subscribers combined in the first quarter of 2013 (November/December 2012 to February/March 2013). This followed a combined decrease of an estimated 8,175 in the fourth quarter of 2012 (August/September to November/December 2012). Given that the largest and best capitalised TV service providers lost customers as a whole in each of the last two quarters, Boon Dog estimates that the entire traditional TV service market also shrank by similar levels in the same periods. This marks the first time that the traditional TV subscription market has declined in size since essentially the launch of cable TV in the early 1950s.

The analysis is contained in Boon Dog?s the Canadian Digital TV Market Monitor research series, which estimates the size of the Canadian traditional TV service market at 11.8 million households.

A report earlier by US analyst Craig Moffett of Moffett Research concluded that cord cutting is real in the US market," says Mario Mota, Boon Dog Partner and principal author of the Canadian Digital TV Market Monitor research series.

"While the recent decline in subscribers in Canada is small relative to the size of the total TV market, we now have two consecutive quarters of data for the Canadian market that confirms that cord cutting is a reality here too," he adds.

A selection of key findings from Boon Dog?s latest research includes the following:

At the end of 2012, 88 per cent of all TV subscription households in Canada received a digital TV offering (10.5 million households)

At 31 December 2012, cable had a 61 per cent share of digital TV households, followed by satellite at 27 per cent, and IPTV at 12 per cent, compared to 62 per cent for cable, 29 per cent for satellite, and eight per cent for IPTV a year earlier.

By the end of 2015, digital TV market shares are forecast to be 58 per cent for cable, 21 per cent for satellite, and 21 per cent for IPTV.