We previously expected there to be 80.5 million US pay TV households this year. We updated our forecast in August, and we now believe that figure will decline by 7.5% to 77.6 million. Our pay TV figures exclude virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs), which deliver live TV over the internet.​

Nearly a third (31.6%) of US homes now access TV by means other than exclusive MVPD subscriptions with cable or satellite operators, including virtual MVPDs (vMVPDs), which now represent 7.8% of all households, per Nielsen. This diversity in TV access modes should be mirrored in the composition of homes included in measurement data sets to accurately depict viewership.

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However, their paths are converging, and most of the customers leaving traditional TV are not replacing it with vMVPDs. We created a metric that combines vMVPD users with pay TV users because vMVPDs operate a lot like cable and satellite providers.

However, their paths are converging, and it is clear that vMVPDs aren’t replacing most of the customers who leave traditional TV. We created a metric that includes vMVPDs with pay TV because vMVPDs operate a lot like cable and satellite providers.