Cord-Cutters Will Outnumber Cable Subscribers This Month

For the first time ever, by the end of 2023, viewers who do not pay for a traditional TV service (i.e. cable) will outnumber those who do, new research from Insider Intelligence finds. 

The combination of U.S. adult cord-cutters and cord-nevers (viewers who didn’t have to cut a cord because they never had one — typically the younger adults), will total 144.1 million. That’s 12.5 percent growth from the prior year.

Simultaneously, traditional pay-TV viewers will decline 10.2 percent to 121.1 million. For the purposes of this study, “traditional pay-TV viewers” include those who subscribe to live TV packages delivered either via cable, satellite, or through a telecom provider. Subscribers to digital pay-TV services — YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, for two prominent examples — don’t count.

The “irreversible decline” began in 2014. Paul Verna, the principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, told IndieWire that was the year “streaming was coming into its own” — and into the “mainstream.”