Barclays Analyst Sees Massive Cord-Cutting in the Coming Decade

As many as 31 million homes could cancel their pay TV accounts or simply trim services over the coming decade. While many in the industry see cord-cutting as a minor trend and believe pay TV subscriber levels will eventually plateau, one Barclays analyst says that won't happen anytime soon. Quoted in Broadcasting and Cable, analyst Kannan Venkateshwar gave the 31 million figure, noting that some networks will decline even faster.

Alongside this, Venkateshwar sees skinny bundles doing well, with services like Sling TV, DirecTV Now, and YouTube TV picking up 17 million subscribers over the coming decade. Viewers trading higher-priced pay TV services for lower-priced bundles will lead to a $13 billion loss in affiliate fees.

In related news, a report from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. finds that 64 percent of U.S. households currently have subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service from Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu. That's up from 47 percent in 2014. Looking only at SVOD subscribers, 51 percent have multiple services.

People are subscribing more and they're streaming more: 29 percent of adults stream from an SVOD every day, up from 16 percent in 2015. That number is far higher for young adults, where 51 percent of those age 18 to 34 stream from an SVOD daily. This data comes from the report Emerging Video Services XI, which surveyed 1,207 U.S. households.