Once considered the future of the video business, OTT-based live-channel bundles, otherwise known as virtual MVPDS, or vMVPDs, have been more recently written off by some analysts as failed businesses. 

But nearly six years after Dish Network ushered in the vMVPD model with the launch of Sling TV, the competitors seem to be holding the line in a low-margin gambit, where affordable pricing is undermined by ever-increasing program licensing demands. 

With the recent launch of T-Mobile’s TVision service, there are more than a dozen vMVPDs on the market. But the third quarter was the first time that all of the biggest virtual operators actually reported their subscriber counts. In fact, the top six services tallied more than 11.5 million users between them. 

By our rough estimate, about 15% of the remaining pay TV business in the U.S. is accounted for by these no-contract, immediate sign-up, skinny-bundled OTT services. 

Below is a low-resolution look at how the top six vMVPDs stack up in terms of stated subscriber count.

While the publicly reported pay TV customer numbers for the second quarter have been universally bad, could the ones not being disclosed create a very different narrative.

According to MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, virtual MVPDs Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV each added around 300,000 customers in the second quarter. Hulu’s virtual pay TV service now has around 2.4 million customers, which would rank it on par with category leader Sling TV. Operator Dish Network reported that Sling TV finished Q2 with 2.472 million subscribers, while adding 48,000 users during the quarter.

YouTube TV would rank third among vMVPDs with around 1.5 million users.

Again, neither Hulu nor Google have reported any official subscriber numbers for their respective virtual pay TV services in quite some time. Hulu's total subscriber base, including for the subscription VOD service, was last reported as 28 million.

Related: Cord Cutting Will Decelerate in Q3, Analyst Predicts

YouTube TV offers more than 70 channels, including the major broadcast networks, along with ESPN and the major cable channels, for $50 a month. Subscribing households can have six simultaneous users and the service comes with a cloud DVR.

Hulu with Live TV users get largely the same offering—plus access to the Hulu SVOD service—for $45 a month. Parent company Disney last week announced that it would bundle Hulu’s base-tier SVOD service along with the upcoming Disney+ product. It’s unclear, however, if Hulu with Live TV will factor into that bundling strategy. 

In the heated battle to achieve scale—and survival—in the bloody virtual MVPD war, Sling TV managed to pad its lead in the fourth quarter, adding around 50,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter.

According to parent Dish Network, the live-streamed platform finished 2018 with 2.42 million subscribers across its Sling TV, Sling International and Sling Latino platforms. Dish had reported 2.370 million users for Sling TV in the third quarter.

Related: Dish Sheds 334K Pay TV Subs in Q4

Juxtaposed against Dish’s massive loss of 334,000 satellite TV users in Q4, Sling TV’s addition of 50,000 users during the period appears modest.

Dish first began breaking out Sling TV metrics in its fourth quarter 2017 earnings report, disclosing around 2.212 million users at the time. There’s no official Q4 2017 growth number. But the addition of 208,000 users for 2018 might also appear modest for Sling TV, given that some estimates had the platform growing by as many as 711,000 users in 2017.

Looked at another way, however, at least the top vMVPD is still growing—an attribute that can’t be ascribed to Sling TV’s closest rival, DirecTV Now. After a promotional bender put the AT&T platform on pace to surpass market leader Sling over the summer, a cold-turkey pullback on promos sent DirecTV Now reeling to a loss of 267,000 users in Q4.

Sling TV now has a comfortable margin over DirecTV Now and Hulu+ Live TV, both of which have around 1.6 million users.

Related: DirecTV Now Pacing to Surpass Sling TV in Subscribers by End of Year

Given how much these low-priced OTT channel packages lose for their operators, analysts don’t see the business as being accretive or meaningful at this point. And certainly, further diluting Dish’s dwindling pay TV user base with more and more virtual pay TV users isn’t helping in the near term. Pay TV average revenue per user (ARPU) dropped from $86.43 for Dish in 2017 to $85.46 last year. In 2016, the operator’s pay TV ARPU was $88.66.

But both Dish and AT&T are bullish on the potential of advanced advertising better monetizing these streaming services in the future. Achieving a critical mass of subscribers is critical for those advanced advertising aspirations.  

Buffalo, NY-based pay TV software company Synacor said its Cloud ID identity management platform is being used by Cheddar to place its digital news networks available at no extra charge to users of YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV.

Since April, as part of their base-tier packages, users of the Hulu and YouTube virtual MVPD platforms have had full access to Cheddar’s live and on-demand programming via the Cheddar website. And in “short order,” they’ll also have access to Cheddar’s various mobile and TV apps, without paying Cheddar’s additional $2.99 subscription fee.

Related: Synacor Cracks Down on Password Abuse

“All Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV subscribers can now login with their credentials and access our content, just like the traditional cable networks,” said Jon Steinberg, CEO of Cheddar, in a statement. “We are always in base bundle, so this means all subscribers of these leading platforms can access us. This type of access is available to all our pay TV distributor partners as quickly as they give us the GO to make this available to their subscribers.”

As for Synacor’s Cloud ID, it enables content providers like Cheddar to authenticate against distributor billing systems as well as direct-to-consumer authentications, while offering security features like concurrency monitoring and device management.