Incredibly, pay TV bundle sees first quarter of subscriber growth since 2017

Let’s cut to the chase. You probably clicked to read this post because the headline is preposterous. And it truly is. Somehow the pay TV business ended Q3 2025 with more subscribers than what it started with. It’s as if a surge of people decided to reinstall their home phones for some reason. But it really happened.

No, this does not mean pay TV is rebounding. Not even in the slightest. Cable is still a dying business, and the virtual alternatives replacing it aren’t capturing subscribers at nearly a large enough clip to make up for it. But it’s interesting to suss out exactly why over 300,000 more households subscribed to a pay TV bundle than canceled it last quarter, the first time that has happened since Q4 2017.

According to data from media research firm MoffettNathanson, as cited by Anthony Crupi in Sportico, the pay TV ecosystem grew by 303,000 subscribers last quarter. That might sound significant, but compared to the typical quarterly drops (nearly 2.5 million subscribers fell out of pay TV in Q1), it’s not much to call home about.

Still, it tells us something about how the trends are, well, trending in the industry. For one, it’s another data point that shows that the rate of decline in cable television is slowing. Charter, for instance, posted losses of just 3.5% in Q3, its best quarter from a growth/decline perspective since Q2 2022.

Charter, in some fashion, paved the way for the late-stage cable bundle business plan back in 2023 during its high-profile carriage dispute with Disney. The resolution of that dispute saw Charter earn the ability to purchase Disney’s streaming services wholesale, then distribute them to subscribers at no additional cost. Now, Charter subs get Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN Unlimited as part of their standard plan. This configuration has spread to other distributors and content providers, helping the pay TV bundle reduce churn.

Virtual pay TV subscriptions, like YouTube TV and Fubo, are also helping to stem the tide of overall shrinkage in the industry. Those types of services secured a 4.6% gain in Q3, growing to 21.6 million households total. However, growth in this category seems to be slowing. Virtual pay TV platforms saw double-digit percentage increases in both Q3 2024 and 2023, so 4.6% this year is a pretty modest figure comparatively. Still, it’s the only part of the pay TV business that can actually tout growth.

However, another data point presented by MoffettNathanson shows that platforms like YouTube TV and Fubo are far from an antidote for the pay TV business. Per the research firm, only about 20% of households that cancel traditional cable or satellite packages resubscribe to one of their virtual alternatives.

Football, one can surmise, is the primary reason the industry can tout its first growth quarter in nearly eight years. Q3 coincides with the beginning of football season in the United States, and the sport remains the primary reason anyone would subscribe to a pay TV bundle in the first place. Look no further than the gaudy viewership numbers the NFL put up on Thanksgiving last month, or the substantial uptick in broadcast television consumption that mirrors football season.

More than anything, football is the reason for this data anomaly, more so than any broader industry trends.

Nevertheless, it’s incredible to say in the year 2025 that the pay TV bundle actually saw any level of growth. Just don’t expect it to be anything more than a flash in the pan.