Report: Cord Cutting Accelerates

The U.S. television industry continues to grapple with the flight of  customers who are ditching their pay-TV service at a rapid clip.

In a grim reminder of the challenges facing media companies, an estimated 812,000 subscribers pulled the plug on their pay-television service in the second quarter, according to a study by consulting firm SNL Kagan.

According to The LA Times, the figure represents a decline in the number of homes that received a bundle of video channels from a cable, satellite or telephone company compared with the first quarter of 2016.

“It is a bit of an acceleration and the biggest quarterly loss that we’ve seen,” Ian Olgeirson, an analyst with SNL Kagan, said Monday in an interview. “We are seeing a gradual increase in the decline rate.”

The year-over-year number was more startling. There were nearly 1.4 million fewer pay-TV subscribers in the second quarter of 2016 compared with the second quarter of 2015.

Consumers now have more options. Increasingly, they are drawn to online video services such as Netflix, Amazon.com, Hulu and CBS All Access, which can be more affordable when combined with a broadband Internet subscription. Younger users are just as comfortable watching shows on phones and tablets as they are watching them on TVs.