Telco TV momentum continues
The two largest telcoTV providers in the U.S. reported their quarterly metrics, and the numbers look encouraging for telcoTV. Collectively, AT&T and Verizon added 402K telcoTV subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2011, pushing their collective video subscriber base to 8.1 million. By comparison, cable companies have reported either flat growth or decreases in video subscribers over these same periods, suggesting consumers continue to see telcoTV as a great alternative to cable.
This is good news for all telcoTV providers, regardless of size. These kinds of subscriber numbers are necessary to ensure a thriving telcoTV ecosystem, which benefits all telcoTV providers, not just AT&T and Verizon. With its latest growth, Verizon is approaching large cable MSO Charter Communications for total number of consumer video subscribers, and will probably overtake them in 2012. Charter counted 4.38 million video subscribers to Verizon’s 4.2 million. AT&T has 3.8 million video subscribers.