A “90-day snapshot” of video subscriber patterns in 34 Massachusetts cities and towns shows Verizon FiOS TV is having an early competitive impact among established pay television providers.
New data from OneTRAK found that in a combined 285,000 homes, initial cable subscriber losses may exceed 10 percent, while 40 percent of new FiOS TV subscribers may be coming from direct-to-home satellite broadcasters.
Comcast is the incumbent cable operator in all the communities, while RCN offers service in nine of them. “Traditional overbuilders, such as RCN, can take a disproportionate hit, effectively insulating the incumbent cable provider,” the survey found.
The subscriber statistics for all three companies, as of Dec. 31, 2006, were recently made public by the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable, which requires all pay television operators in the state to file year-end subscriber count figures by municipality.
