Cord-cutting is hitting the pay-TV industry hard. The latest evidence is Verizon’s Q3 progress report: The telco lost a net 18,000 Fios Video subs in the corner, compared to a net gain of 36,000 during last year’s Q3. By the end of the third quarter, the company had 4.6 million Fios Video subs. In a call with analysts, CFO Matt Ellis said the losses reflected an “ongoing shift” from linear TV to OTT services. Verizon had already confirmed that, in the hopes of snaring some of its own cord-cutters, it plans to launch an OTT-based TV service – similar to what AT&T has done with DirecTV Now. (According to a new report from Bloomberg, that service is slated to debut in the spring of 2018.) Fios TV notwithstanding, Verizon actually had a fairly decent quarter. The company’s Fios Internet service gained 66,000 customers, placing it at 5.8 million in total. It also added 603,000 monthly phone customers – better than Wall Street analysts had predicted. The company’s overall revenue amounted to $31.72 billion, beating Wall Street’s estimates and improving on last year’s Q3 numbers.
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