US pay TV losses approach 4 million a year – 70% at AT&T, Dish

An irrecoverable flow of cord cutters wreaked havoc on the US pay TV industry in Q1, with much written about the record figures across cable, satellite and vMVPD services, and it was the same old story of glossing over the bigger picture. The top six US operators recorded video losses of more than 1.2 million between them for the first quarter of 2019, which for the year to date period cumulatively comes to over 3.7 million losses – a total hemorrhaging which AT&T and Dish Network accounted for more than 70%. Indeed, the key differentiator is that both these satellite TV operators run separate vMVPD services, with DirecTV Now and Sling TV, which are bundled into figures along with satellite…