Research firm eMarketer says it underestimated how many people might become cord-cutters this year. The firm now believes that 33 million individuals will drop traditional pay TV service in 2018, meaning its previous prediction from July 2017 was off by about 6 million people.
eMarketer seemed to believe that TV providers such as Comcast would slow the bleeding by loading Netflix and other streaming services onto their boxes. Instead, those services continue to cannibalize cable and satellite TV service outright, while live TV services like DirecTV Now and Sling TV allow people to retain many of the same channels they had with traditional pay TV service.
The firm anticipates that cord-cutting will slow down significantly next year, with predicted growth of 18.9% versus 32.8% growth in 2018. But with cord-cutters saving $85 per month on average according to recent survey by cg42, we’ll see how that prediction pans out.
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