Meanwhile the number of pay TV households in the US is expected to decrease by 3.0% in 2019, to 87.9 million. It's worth recognizing, though, that pay TV households still considerably outnumber cord-cutters.
“Cord-cutters are part of a small group of early adopters, most of whom don’t watch a lot of TV, and for whom the ability to watch live sports is not an issue,” said Alan Wolk, co-founder of video consultancy TV[R]EV. “I would bet that many of them also had access to their parents' cable TV passwords for those times they wanted to watch linear TV.”
To combat churn, cable providers are pushing "skinny bundles," which are streaming services that offer customers access to live TV for a lower monthly cost. But they are becoming more expensive. In recent months, Hulu with Live TV raised its price by $5 per month, and YouTube TV and DirecTV Now raised their monthly rates by $10.
With the cost savings of skinny bundles shrinking, young people displaying loyalty to Netflix, new OTT services launching, and cord-cutters not looking back, traditional TV companies have their work cut out for them to maintain subscribers.