MPAA: streaming video subscriptions surpassed those for cable TV for the first time in 2018 globally, rising 131.2M or 27% YoY to 613.3M, as cable fell to 556M
Andrew Liptak / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
The MPAA's 2018 tally marks the crossover point in a shift its own later reports keep confirming: by 2020 the trade group counted global video subscriptions at 1.1B, up 26% YoY, and by 2021 streaming accounted for 72% of a $99.7B global market, up from 46% just two years earlier.
The 613.3M-vs-556M gap is narrow enough that this reads less like cable's collapse than streaming's compounding — the same pattern Ofcom tracked in the UK, where Netflix added subscribers fastest while Amazon Prime grew nearly as quickly from a smaller base.
First-order effects
- Cable operators lose the scale argument to advertisers and content licensors: with 57M fewer global subscriptions than streaming, pay-TV is now the smaller negotiating counterparty in carriage and licensing talks.
Second-order effects
- Studios' release economics tilt toward the larger subscriber base — the same dynamic that pushed streaming to 72% of the combined theatrical-and-streaming market by 2021 — pressuring exhibitors' window terms.
Third-order effects
- Growth eventually decelerates as penetration saturates: PwC already projected US streaming revenue growth slowing from 19.5% in 2021 to 13% in 2022, pushing competition from subscriber acquisition toward pricing and retention — the conditions under which Nielsen found streaming taking its largest-ever share of US TV viewing in July 2022.
The trend: Global video consumption is consolidating around subscription streaming platforms, with each annual MPAA/MPA tally confirming a wider lead over pay-TV even as per-market growth rates flatten.