If Apple is ever going to launch its own streaming service — and I think it will — now is the time. In 2015, there were 205.4 million traditional pay television subscribers in the U.S., but by 2022, the number will have fallen to just 169.7 million, according to a new study by eMarketer.
The research firm says that by the end of 2018 the number of adults who have canceled their traditional TV service and continue without one will reach 33 million, while last year the firm forecast 27.1 million.
On a percentage basis, 32.8% of American adults will have abandoned their cable and satellite TV services by the end of the year and embrace over-the-top streaming services like Amazon Prime Video, Hulu or Netflix.
According to eMarketer, the number of cord-cutters will have grown to 39.3 million by the end of 2019, 45 million a year after that, 50.2 million a year after that, and in 2022, a dramatic 55.1 million will have cut their cords. In 2015, there were 205.4 million traditional pay TV subscribers in the U.S., but by 2022 the number will have fallen to 169.7 million, according to the research group.
There’s a rumor that Verizon wants to partner with Google or Apple to provide television when it launches the first “superfast” 5G service to homes in Los Angeles and Sacramento later this year. And with 19th scripted series in the works, Apple has to have some sort of TV service in mind.
Upcoming original programming titles include “Amazing Stores,” “Are You Sleeping,” “Home,” “Little America,” “See,” “Swagger,” an untitled Damien Chazelle drama, an untitled Reese Witherspoon/Jennifer Anniston dreamed, “Dickinson” (a half-hour comedy starring Hailee Stenifeld), an untitled Ronald D. Moore drama, an untitled M. Night Shyamalan thriller series, a TV series adaption of “Foundation,” the Isaac Asimov science fiction novel trilogy, and the half-hour dramedy “Little Voices” from producers J.J. Abrams and Sara Bareilles, “Little America” from the screenwriters (Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani) of “The Big Sick” and producer/writer Lee Eisenberg, a drama series about pre-teen investigative reporter Hilde Lysiak, an English-language adaptation of the French short-form series Canal+, and “See,” a world-building drama set in the future.
