Miller Tabak: Cable subscriber losses will slow in Q3

Top cable and DBS providers will lose 48,000 video subscribers during the third quarter, which would be an improvement on the 338,000 customers the industry lost during Q2, Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce predicts.

Subscriber losses are being driven by a high unemployment rate, coupled with low housing sales activity, which has historically driven new pay TV subscriptions, Joyce said in a Monday note. More consumers are attempting to to reduce their monthly spending, and some are relying on over-the-top video alternatives, he added.

Joyce predicted that Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) subscriber growth for its FiOS services will be hurt by its employee strike, which limited its ability to provision new customers. Verizon rivals will benefit from the strike, including Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and to a lesser extent Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR), he added.

With consumers cutting costs, more pay TV providers may begin to offer subscribers smaller and less expensive programming packages, Joyce told FierceCable. He said Charter may develop a low cost programming package similar to Time Warner Cable's $49.99 monthly TV Essentials package.

For more:
- Marketwatch has this article

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Cable in the second quarter of 2011
Time Warner Cable launches TV Essentials