As Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision and others have been announcing their loss in cable subscribers, the question has been where have all the cable subs gone. The cause has been attributed to cord cutting, low housing starts, and of course, the economy. But now comes word where a good bit of these subs may have switched to. "DirecTV added 327,000 net new subscribers in the third quarter, soundly beating analysts' estimates of 203,000 net new additions." That certainly covers all of the lost cable subs in Q3.
It certainly puts to rest for now the argument that cord cutting and housing starts are to blame. And not knowing the cost for DirecTV, hard to tell if the switch produces a ton of economic saving. DirecTV believes the higher sub growth is due to their NFL Sunday Ticket promotion. If so, then the motives for change are actually due to content. Content is King and in this case, that content is NFL Football.
