OTTAWA – In the third quarter of 2013, Canada’s publicly traded television service providers combined to add subscription TV customers, thanks to the record growth of IPTV, reversing a trend of cumulative losses in each of the previous three quarters.
New research from Ottawa-based research and consulting firm Boon Dog Professional Services shows that the publicly traded TV service providers (cable satellite and telcoTV) added an estimated 14,145 TV subscribers combined in Q3 in what is traditionally a strong quarter for TV subscriber growth – and all of it was a result of record IPTV subscriber growth. However, that number is about a third of the estimated 40,923 TV subscribers added in Q3 2012
“People should not be fooled by the growth in TV subscribers in Q3 2013 in thinking that cord-cutting is not happening in the Canadian traditional TV service market or that the trend in cancelling TV subscriptions is over,” says Boon Dog Partner Mario Mota. “When we drill deeper into the numbers we find that the publicly traded TV service providers have lost an estimated 10,873 TV subscribers combined so far in 2013 and an estimated 19,048 subscribers combined over the last four quarters. We believe Q3 2013 represents a blip in the cord-cutting trend.”
More than 90% of all traditional TV service subscribers in Canada are customers of the publicly traded TV service providers (Rogers, Shaw/Shaw Direct, BCE, Vidéotron, Cogeco, Telus, Bell Aliant, and MTS). Given that these large and best-capitalized TV service providers added customers as a whole in Q3 2013, Boon Dog estimates that the entire traditional TV service market also grew slightly in the same period, reads the report. The analysis is published in Boon Dog’s the Canadian Digital TV Market Monitor research series, which estimates the size of the Canadian traditional TV service market at roughly 11.8 million households at the end of Q3 2013.
Additional key data from Boon Dog’s research includes:
* Canada’s biggest four cable companies (Rogers, Shaw, Vidéotron, and Cogeco) combined lost 81,095 TV subscribers in Q3 2013 and have lost a total of 235,797 subscribers so far in 2013
* The two satellite TV companies in Canada (Bell and Shaw Direct) lost an estimated 26,963 TV subscribers in Q3 2012 and have lost an estimated total of 87,007 subscribers to date in 2013
* The publicly traded IPTV providers added an estimated 122,245 IPTV subscribers in Q3 2013 and have added an estimated 311,024 IPTV subscribers thus far in 2013.
