In an unexpected and likely temporary turn of events, the number of people paying to watch cable channels has increased.
On Monday, research analyst Moffett Nathanson released a report, “Cord-Cutting Monitor Q3 2025: Signs of Life?” report. It found that pay TV operators, including cable companies, satellite companies and virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) such as YouTube TV and Fuboadded 303,000 net subscribers in the third quarter of 2025.
According to the report, “there are more linear video subscribers now than there were three months ago. This is the first time we can say this since 2017.”
In the third quarter of 2017, MoffettNathanson reported that pay TV acquired 318,000 new subscribers. But since then, the number of subscribers in the industry has been declining: in the second quarter of 2025 there were 1,045,000, as shown in the graph below.
The world's largest vMVPD by number of subscribers is YouTube TV. 8 million subscribers claimed in February 2024; According to some analysts, this number is now by 9.4 million. In its report, MoffettNathanson estimated that YouTube TV added 750,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2025, up from 1 million in the third quarter of 2024.
Traditional pay-TV companies have also contributed to the industry's unexpected growth by bundling their services with streaming subscriptions. Charter Communications offers packages with nine streaming services, including Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max. In the third quarter of 2024, the net reduction in customers was 294,000, compared to approximately 70,000 in the third quarter of 2025. Other cable companies have taken similar steps. Comcast, for example, launched a streaming package with Netflix, Peacock and Apple TV. in May 2024. For the third quarter of 2025 Comcast reports. This was the best pay-TV subscriber growth in nearly five years, representing a net loss of 257,000 customers.
