The year 2023 has been something of a mixed bag for YouTube TV, news-wise. The live TV streamer’s struggles in attracting a large amount of new subscribers to NFL Sunday Ticket in its first year hosting that package of out-of-market games have been well documented; YouTube TV has reportedly managed to bring just 1.3 million users to Sunday Ticket so far this year, a far cry from the 4.5 million some estimates have said would be needed to break even on the deal to acquire the package.

• A new estimate from Leichtman Research Group shows YouTube TV added 600,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2023, and now sits at 6.5 million overall.
• The top cable providers lost over 1 million users combined during Q3, dropping the number of American pay-TV subscribers to around 71.5 million.
• YouTube TV is dominating the live TV streaming market, but is that good for customers?

How Many Subscribers Did Cable Drop Last Quarter?

Despite its struggles with NFL Sunday Ticket, YouTube TV had a successful third quarter of 2023. Cord cutting isn’t slowing down in the United States; in fact, according to Leichtman Research Group (LRG) the top linear cable providers in the country like Comcast and Charter lost 1 million subscribers combined during the quarter. Combining with satellite, traditional pay-TV services dropped 1.8 million customers in Q3.

Live TV streaming was the only segment of the pay-TV market to add users during the quarter. Fubo, Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV all registered subscriber increases of between 100,000 and 300,000, and DIRECTV has nearly 12 million users between its satellite service and DIRECTV STREAM, although LRG does not break out those subscriber subsets as individual data points.

YouTube TV bested each of its competitors during the quarter, however, adding 600,000 users to sit at 6.5 million overall, aligning closely with another estimate from May which showed the streamer had 6.3 million users. These numbers are both LRG estimates, as YouTube TV does not regularly provide its actual subscriber totals. The last time it gave an official update was summer of 2022, when it revealed that it had 5 million customers. If accurate, however, it would indicate that YouTube TV can claim nearly 10% of the entire pay-TV audience of 71.5 million viewers.

Is YouTube TV’s Domination a Good Thing?

The economics of live TV streaming are quite different from those of subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services like Netflix or Max. The revenue per customer on services like YouTube TV is much higher, so consolidation of the live TV marketplace won’t happen in the same way that it will for SVOD platforms.

Still, YouTube TV’s domination of the live TV streaming market could lead to some competitors dropping out. The service is highly generalized, which would indicate that competing services in the most danger would be platforms like DIRECTV STREAM and Hulu + Live TV, who also try to replicate the cable experience closely by offering a wide variety of different channels.

Skinnier channel bundles like Sling TV and Philo offer users the chance to pay substantially less per month to skip some cable channels, filling an important space in the market. However, these streamers could also be in danger of being discontinued if services like YouTube TV continue to expand; YouTube TV carries all the channels that Sling and Philo do, and those platforms may not have enough scale to continue in the long term.

Competition drives prices lower, however, so users should hope that YouTube TV’s live streaming competitors are able to stay in business. YouTube’s parent company Google has the power to drive smaller live TV services out of the market, and depending on how it chooses to wield that power there could be fewer live TV streaming platforms available to absorb cord cutters in coming years.