Only 20% or Less of Cord Cutters Have Moved to YouTube TV, in the Past 1.9 Years
A recent post at The Hollywood Reporter asserts that “most cord cutters and cord nevers are flocking” to YouTube TV, which isn’t accurate and overlooks the actual numbers, as detailed below. I often see this notion in the media that YouTube TV is picking up more cord-cutters than it actually is. The author also states that “Alphabet barely cares about YouTube TV’s financial performance,” which couldn’t be further from the truth, and every employee in the YouTube TV division I talk to would attest to the contrary.
Alphabet views the P&L of its YouTube TV business as one that needs to become profitable, and the author’s notion that Alphabet doesn’t care about YouTube’s financial performance is inaccurate. In January, YouTube raised the price of YouTube TV by $10 to $82.99 per month, due to rising content costs. In conversations I’ve had with executives at Alphabet, they have indicated that the YouTube TV service is not being used as a loss leader. If the company didn’t care about the financials as the author suggests, YouTube TV would not have dropped channels that they say cost too much to license. In addition, the pricing for the service has increased from $65 in 2020 to $83 in 2025, with the cost of the service more than doubling since its launch.
In February 2024, YouTube reported that it had “more than 8 million subscribers.” They have not given out a number since then, but many are reporting via third-party sources that YouTube TV has “about” or “close to” 10 million subscribers today. If the reported 10 million number is accurate, YouTube TV gained 2 million or fewer subscribers in 1.9 years. Over the same 1.9 years, more than 8 million cord-cutters have been reported in public earnings from Comcast, Altice, Charter, Verizon, Breezeline, DISH, and WideOpenWest, with an unknown number from DIRECTV, which no longer reports subscriber numbers. Adding in the not-yet-reported cord-cutting numbers from Q3 of this year, and the number of cord-cutting households in the past 1.9 years will be approximately 9 million.
An aspect that many may not be aware of, which is factored into YouTube TV subscriber numbers, is that YouTube counts consumers on trial plans who have not converted to paying members as subscribers. That’s why they never use the language of “paying members” but rather subscribers. Adding up the math, and assuming the 10 million YouTube TV members are accurate, this means that only 22% of cord-cutters have signed up for YouTube TV in the past 1.9 years, with that number dropping to under 20% if you add in those trialing YouTube TV for free. That would not be, as the author suggests, “most cord cutters,” but instead only one out of five cord cutters, or possibly even less, depending on how many trial subscribers YouTube TV has.
These numbers make sense, given that the cost of VMPD services has increased significantly over the past five years. For many, YouTube TV ($82.99 per month), Hulu+ Live TV ($88.99 per month), Fubo ($84.99 per month) and DIRECTV Stream ($84.99 per month) are no longer a simple replacement for cable TV, as they were when the services first entered the market. Over the past five years, more than 20 million households have cut the cord, with less than half opting for vMVPD services, according to public data provided by Disney, Fubo, DISH, and YouTube. That doesn’t take into account how many might have returned to cable for various reasons, nor does it consider those who leave a service and then come back (churn), which also needs to be acknowledged when discussing numbers.
All numbers are sourced from public filings, with the only estimate being for DIRECTV, which does not provide its own numbers but is estimated by Wall Street to have lost at least 1 million subscribers in 2024.