“Changing viewing habits point to mounting losses for traditional video services, and challengers are lining up to capitalise,” said Ian Olgeirson, research director at Kagan’s parent company S&P Global Market Intelligence. “However, the operators are not without significant fortifications enabling expectations for preserving a majority share in the five-year outlook.”

Change and instability is now the norm in the US video industry. Traditional multichannel subscriptions in the US are set to fall to 82.3 million by 2021, down 10.8 million over five years.

Although households with a traditional multichannel subscription will remain in the solid majority in the five-year US video household segmentation outlook, upward momentum lies firmly with alternative services, says Kagan.

The researchers found the combined account for a non-multichannel tally is on course to exceed one quarter of occupied households in 2017 and peak one third by 2021.

Niche virtual services pioneered by Dish TV’s SlingTV and Playstation Vue are also set to become mainstream for nearly 11 million households, the researchers note.

Kagan also forecasts that by 2021, the number of households relying solely on over-the-top (OTT) delivery of self-aggregated online content will reach nearly 18 million, equating to 14% of occupied households in the US.