comScore: pure play streaming services like Sling TV and DirecTV Now reach 5% of US Wi-Fi households, up 58% since last year
The number of U.S. households watching streaming TV services - those that deliver cable TV-like programming over the internet - has grown a remarkable 58% over last year, according to new data from comScore.
Context & Ripple Effects
comScore has been tracking the streaming-TV buildout for years: its 2017 measurement found 53% of the 49M+ US Wi-Fi homes using at least one OTT video service, with Netflix reaching three-quarters of them. What changed by mid-2018 is the composition of that audience — live, cable-style packages delivered over the internet are no longer a niche experiment.
Sling TV was the proof of concept back when it counted only around 250,000 subscribers in 2015; DirecTV Now and imitators followed. A separate April 2018 report already showed streaming-only households nearly tripling since 2013 to 14.1M. The new 5%-of-Wi-Fi-households figure, up 58% year over year, marks the moment pure-play bundles moved from early adopters into measurable mainstream traction.
First-order effects
- Sling TV and DirecTV Now gain a fast-growing subscriber base directly out of the traditional pay-TV bundle, while legacy cable and satellite providers see those same households cancel linear service.
Second-order effects
- Streaming media player makers become the gatekeepers of this shift — Parks Associates' later data showing Roku and Fire TV controlling most of that market means device platforms, not cable boxes, now sit between these services and their viewers.
Third-order effects
- If pure-play adoption keeps compounding at this rate, the linear bundle's share of TV viewing erodes structurally — a trajectory confirmed four years later when Nielsen measured streaming taking the largest share of US TV viewing for the first time in July 2022.
The trend: US television is migrating from the bundled cable subscription to internet-delivered services, with measurement firms' yearly data points tracing the crossover from niche to majority.