How Low Will It Go? Less Than Two-Thirds of U.S. Households Have Pay-TV, Says LRG

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The percentage of U.S. households with a live pay-TV service continues to go in one direction: Down. The portion is now at 64%, according the Leichtman Research Group (LRG).

Pay-TV operators use cable, satellite or telco platforms or act as virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs). Eighty-seven percent of households used these platforms in 2008. The portion barely budged five years later (86% in 2013) but began trending down significantly in 2018 (78%) as streaming grew in popularity.

Households with Pay-TV

Sixty-six percent of households had a live TV service in 2021.

LRG’s “Pay-TV in the U.S. 2023” report found that 70% of adults above 45 years old and 56% of those 18 to 44 years-old have a pay-TV service.  In 2013, 88% of adults above 45 years-old and 83% of those 18 to 44 years old had a pay-TV service.

“The percent of U.S. TV households with a live pay-TV service waned over the past decade, with a more precipitous decline over the past five years,” Bruce Leichtman, LRG’s president and principal analyst, said in a press release. “The penetration of pay-TV remains lowest among younger adults and the categories that they tend to populate, including movers and renters.  Today, 56% of ages 18-44 have a pay-TV service, compared to 83% a decade ago.”

Other highlights from the twenty-first annual release of the report:

  • 48% of those that moved in the past year do not currently have a pay-TV service. This is a higher level than in any previous year;
  • 42% of renters and 33% of homeowners do not have a pay-TV service;
  • 33% of non-subscribers last had a pay-TV service within the past three years, 37% last had a pay-TV service over three years ago, and 30% never had a pay-TV service; 
  • Among those that never had a pay-TV service, 63% are ages 18-34, compared to 24% of former pay-TV subscribers;
  • The mean age of traditional pay-TV subscribers is 49.3 – compared to 42.5 among non-subscribers, and 40.8 with vMVPD-only;
  • Among all pay-TV subscribers, the mean reported spending per month is $112.70 – 5% higher than the mean monthly spending in 2018.

The assessment is based on a survey of 1,769 adults.