You don't have to look hard these days to find a downer report about the fate of linear television. 

And only a few key earnings calls into the Q3 reporting cycle, the news seems likely to get worse. 

Update: Several hours after this story was filed, Google announced that YouTube had experienced its first quarterly decline in ad sales ever, with Q3 revenue dropping nearly 2% to $7.07 billion. You can read that story here. 

As the first major pay TV operator to offer third-quarter customer metrics, Verizon reported the loss of around 95,000 Fios TV customers. As elegantly showcased by Lightshed Partners, that represented a surge of around 8.8% over the circa-87,000 customers lost to Verizon Fios TV in the second quarter. 

The rate of cord-cutting also increased by a similar .8% rate from Q1 - Q2 for the wireless giant, after it had held largely steady for 18 months (see graphic). 

With Comcast and Charter Communications set to deliver their Q3 reports later this week, expect video cord cutting to quite possibly re-emerge as a key issue. Comcast has lost 512,000 and 520,000 customers, respectively, in the first and second quarters of 2022. 

Meanwhile, Lightshed analyst Richard Greenfield triangulated another early-Q3-season earnings report from Snap Inc., during which strong concerns were expressed about the current advertising sales market. 

Snap Co-Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel spoke at length about navigating "this difficult macro environment that has impacted our advertising business over the past few quarters." 

Responding to both Verizon's and Snap's metrics, Greenfield tweeted over the weekend, "Not a good start to earnings for anyone in the broadcast or cable TV network biz," noting that the Snap report signals a meaningful "pullback in brand ad spend in Q4 as recession fears build." 

Tracking the executive pessimism on its latest "Earnings Scorecard," Lightshed also  found that, among the 69 companies it tracks, mentions of the term "recession" increased to 60 in the second quarter vs. just two in the third quarter of 2021. 

Observing the behavior of one of the video business' biggest advertisers, Procter & Gamble, during its Q3 call last week, we didn't find a mention of the "R" word even once. 

But the company did discuss a "very challenging cost environment, with CFO Andre Schulten noting, "When you think about our marketing spend, we estimate there is still significant opportunity to optimize in the ability to reach consumers more broadly and more effectively at significantly lower cost as our digital reach increases." ▪️

The other shoe appears ready to drop for One American News Network (OAN), which lost its biggest pay TV carriage provider, DirecTV, back in April.

The controversial far right cable network, known for its reporting of loony-tunes conspiracy theories and its avid support for former president Donald Trump's "Big Lie" about bogus 2020 election fraud, has a deal with its last major MVPD partner, Verizon Fios, that expires on July 30.

"Our negotiation with OAN has been a typical, business-as-usual carriage negotiation like those that routinely happen between content distributors and content providers. These negotiations were focused on economics, as they always are, but OAN failed to agree to fair terms," Verizon said in a statement emailed to Next TV Thursday.

"Since we were unable to reach an agreement, effective July 31, 2022, we will no longer have the rights to provide our customers with this programming, and it will be removed from the Fios TV lineup," Verizon added. "Our company has long advocated for providing customers with the ability to choose what content they want to watch, and our Fios TV platform offers a wide and diverse choice of programming options, including a la carte options, that strive to meet our millions of customers' various content needs and preferences."

Also read: Trump Calls for Boycotts of AT&T and Comcast, Says They're 'Radical Left Lunatics Who Are Destroying Our Nation'

Beyond Verizon Fios TV, which finished the first quarter with around 3.56 million remaining subscribers, One America News has carriage via Alaskan cable operator GCI and through small virtual MVPD Vidgo. These remaining outlets likely provide less than 200,000 subscribers combined, however. 

OAN does deliver its programming through free live streaming service KlowdTV, and OAN is now selling itself via a live-streaming 24/7 direct-to-consumer app for $4.99 a month, $53.85 a year. Also, OAN has begun distributing itself as a digital sub-channel. 

Last week, OAN announced that it's now available as a sub on WOSC-CD channel 61.8 in the Pittsburgh DMA.

"We have been incredibly encouraged by the momentum that our OAN Plus channel is building in broadcast and we continue to hear that the significance and relevance of the OAN brand is valuable" said Alex Kopacz, executive VP of content distribution and strategy at OAN. "We recognize the growth of broadcast OTA viewership and adding a new top-25 DMA like Pittsburgh will further accelerate our ongoing broadcast strategy."

Can OAN sell enough advertising as a sub channel, and enough $4.99 DTC subscriptions, to make up for the loss of tens of millions of pay TV homes? 

A number of OAN talents have recently bolted the programmer for rival far-right channel Newsmax. And more than a whiff of desperation seems to be permeating Herring's San Diego headquarters. 

This was in full effect in June, when Robert Herring tweeted a rumor about Elon Musk swooping in and buying his channel -- a rumor Musk immediately shot down. 

After DirecTV's majority owner, AT&T, announced in January that it wouldn't renew its deal with OAN, One America News personality Dan Ball urged viewers to dig up dirt on AT&T Chairman Bill Kennard, "whatever it is." 

Trump, meanwhile, called AT&T -- a publicly traded company based in what is a decidedly red state, which contributed to his election campaign and staunchly supported his 2017 corporate tax break -- "left-wing lunatics who are destroying our nation."

AT&T's juxtaposition to OAN, however, is far different than Verizon's, with AT&T having a ground-floor role in launching the channel. ■

Back in 2008, Verizon Fios TV was pay TV's hottest property, growing by 303,000 customers in the fourth quarter of that year. 

Back and those days, our linear-focused LCD TV sets were filled with Transformers-themed commercials starring blockbuster film maven Michael Bay, telling us how awesome this new pay TV alternative to cable and satellite was. 

These days? With Verizon's focus clearly directed toward 5G wireless and fiber connectivity, Fios TV isn't as awesome. Verizon reported the loss of another 69,000 Fios TV customers in the fourth quarter, with its base slipping to around 3.645 million customers.

Fios TV is now the sixth largest pay TV platform in the U.S., trailing Comcast's Xfinity TV, Charter's Spectrum TV, DirecTV and Dish Network, as well as virtual MVPD's Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV.

Like AT&T, Verizon also divested its media portfolio, ditching to private equity company Apollo Management last year for $5 billion.

For its part, Verizon often cross-sells third-party video products, including YouTube TV and the Disney Bundle, prioritizing them over the traditional Fios linear video platform, trying to keep sales moving for its fiber-based, Fios-branded wireline broadband products.

Verizon added 51,000 internet customers during the fourth quarter and 339,000 for the full 2021 campaign. Fios revenue was up 5.6% year over year to $2.9 billion in the fourth quarter.

Calling 2021 a "transformational" year during which it fulfilled the objectives laid out three years ago when he joined the company as CEO, Hans Vestberg told investors, "As we move into 2022, we have the necessary assets to realize our strategy that we laid out in 2019. We are laser focused on executing our 5G strategy and providing value to our customers, shareholders, employees, and society, as 2022 will be the most exciting year yet for Verizon."

Verizon said Wednesday that its Fios TV app is now supported by Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV 4K connected TV devices.

The Fios TV service still requires subscribers to lease at least one proprietary set-top, the charge for which is built into the core service offering. Currently, the linear pay TV service includes one voice-remote-enabled Fios TV One box. The Fire TV and Apple TV support, however, expand the app's usage beyond mobile devices--it was previously only available for iOS and Android smart phones and tablets. Notably, it's still not supported in the top OTT device ecosystem, Roku. 

"Now you can Mix & Match how you watch your favorite shows, too. The Fios TV Home App will be available on Apple TV 4K, Apple TV HD and Amazon Fire TV beginning July 22, 2021, creating new ways to watch live television with Verizon Fios," Verizon said in a statement.  

"With the voice-powered Fios TV One, now included in new Fios TV packages, customers get the first Fios TV box included at no additional charge, and can now watch live television on compatible devices throughout their home," Verizon added. 

Verizon reported another 62,000 lost linear Fios TV subscribers in the second quarter, which was actually a deceleration from the 81,000 who cut the Fios TV cord in the second quarter of 2020. 

But with Verizon focused on its "Mix & Match" strategy, which lets Fios Internet customers choose to bundle third-party live-streaming bundles like Google's YouTube TV instead of Verizon's linear TV product, if they so choose, the company's wireline internet business is expanding. 

Verizon reported the addition of 92,000 Fios Internet customers in Q2, a quarter that culminated its best 12-month period for Fios Internet growth since 2015. In the second quarter of last year, Verizon only added around 10,000 Fios Internet customers. 

Verizon reported total Q2 revenue of $7.8 billion, up 3.7% year over year. Fios revenue reached $2.9 billion in the quarter, up 5.4% year over year. 

BNC (Black News Channel) has reached a carriage agreement with Verizon Fios TV, extending the reach of the African-American targeted news channel to nearly 60 million linear cable subscribers, both parties announced Wednesday.

The deal allows BNC, which launched in February 2020, to reach more than 3.7 million Verizon Fios TV subscribers. Verizon is the latest linear distributor to carry BNC, joining Comcast, DirecTV, Charter Communications and Dish Network, according to the channel. BNC offers coverage of the unique perspectives, challenges and success of Black and brown communities. 

Also Read : BNC's Aisha Mills Discusses The Equality Act and Representation at Pride TV Summit 

“We are pleased to reach this important distribution agreement with Verizon Fios TV and continue BNC’s strong growth trajectory during a period of contraction for most of the industry,” said Princell Hair, CEO of BNC in a statement. “Linear and digital platforms are seeing increasing value in BNC’s unprecedented coverage of the experiences unfolding in Black and Brown communities as well as perspectives, viewpoints and stories that are not presented anywhere else.” 

Also Read: Multicultural Perspectives: Princell Hair Leads Black News Channel Through Turbulent News Cycle (video)

Despite a recent projection that cord cutting will accelerate significantly over the next 24 months, the top five publicly traded pay TV companies lost 22.3% fewer video customers in Q1 than they did in the first three months of 2020. 

Comcast, Charter Communications, AT&T, Dish Network and Verizon combined to lose 1,561,000 video customers in Q1 vs. 2,011,000 in the same period of 2020. 

For the most part, video losses for each of these companies were worse, or largely the same, save for one operator, AT&T. That telecom lost 897,000 customers across its DirecTV satellite and U-verse “premium” platforms in the first quarter of last year, and another 138,000 from virtual MVPD AT&T TV Now. Most of the losses came in satellite TV.

In January, February and March of 2021, AT&T lost a combined 620,000 across DirecTV, U-verse and AT&T TV—the latter service, launched in April of last year, having subsumed AT&T TV Now. AT&T is in the process of spinning off a portion of its pay TV assets to private equity firm TPG. 

Among cable operators, Comcast saw its Xfinity TV losses accelerate to 491,000 vs. 409,000 in the first quarter of 2020, while Charter Communications saw losses expand from 70,000 to 138,000, first quarter vs. first quarter. 

In satellite, Dish Network saw flat linear customer recession of 132,000 users, but experienced improved subscriber losses for its Sling TV vMVPD, which lost only 100,000 customers vs. 280,000 in Q1 2021. 

Among telcos, Verizon’s 82,000 lost Fios TV souls were largely flat with the 84,000 shed in Q1 2020, but the company retracted to overall customer levels (3.7 million) not seen in 10 years.

This analysis leaves out a range of smaller cable companies, Altice USA, Mediacom and Cable One.  Also not included are major virtual MVPD operators Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV. 

Verizon said Tuesday that it will give a second round of billing credits to Fios TV subscribers for lost game events on regional sports networks due to COVID-19.

“Verizon is fulfilling its promise to Fios TV customers who previously received bill credits for a reduced number of live sporting events due to COVID-19,” Verizon said in a statement. “Following the first round of credits issued in December 2020, Verizon Fios has secured additional refunds from Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) and is passing on those refunds to Fios TV customers who subscribe to those RSNs. Eligible customers will see an ‘RSN Credit’ on their April bill. 

Also read: NY AG Claims State Residents Have Gotten $76M In Sports TV Rebates

Verizon and other top pay TV operators issued rebates back in December for games lost in the early phase of the pandemic. The rebates vary widely and are based in large part on where customers live. The credits typically ranged from $8-$25 last year, depending on the provider and area.

As the pandemic has dragged on, more and more pro and collegiate sports leagues have come back online. But games are still missing. The NBA, for example, is in the second half of a 72-game regular season—a typical NBA campaign is 82 games. 

Verizon currently charges customers a monthly “regional sports network” surcharge of up to $8.89. 

The fastest growing pay TV service at the beginning of the last decade, Verizon Fios TV just experienced its worst customer quarter ever, losing 84,000 subscribers in Q1.

The IPTV platform now has less than 4.2 million users and is seeing—right along with the rest of the linear pay TV business—accelerated losses. Fios TV shed 222,000 users in 2019, and this most recent Q1 represented a quickening over the 53,000 users lost in the first quarter of 2019.

Also read: Verizon’s Video Strategy: Everything You Need to Know About the Wireless Giant’s Tortured TV History

In its earnings release Friday, Verizon said the losses reflect “the ongoing shift from traditional linear video to over-the-top offerings.”

Verizon is currently promoting third-party services like the YouTube TV virtual MVPD platform, which the telecom offers Fios Internet users free for three months upon signup. Verizon is also offering Fios Internet signups a free year of Disney Plus.

Also read: Verizon Fios Giving Subscribers Free Premium Channels

Verizon reported the addition of 59,000 Fios Internet users, “as work-from-home, in-home schooling, and other related measures increased the demand for high-quality broadband offerings.”

Verizon’s Fios TV video service has added Bloomberg Television on the East Coast, effective Wednesday.

The move makes business-oriented Bloomberg TV available in key financial markets including New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Bloomberg was founded by Michael Bloomberg, who is running for president.

"Fios TV customers enjoy a wide range of viewing choices and we're pleased to add Bloomberg TV to that line-up," said Erin McPherson, Verizon's head of content strategy, acquisitions and programming. "Bloomberg's content will be welcomed by our viewers seeking first-class global business news coverage."

Financial terms were not disclosed. Verizon had dropped Bloomberg TV in January 2018. At the time Bloomberg was reportedly seeking carriage fees from distributors for the first time. 

"Bloomberg continues to be a leading news destination for business and finance professionals all across the globe," said M. Scott Havens, global head of digital & media distribution for Bloomberg Media. "We are pleased to have reached this agreement to bring our unrivaled business news to millions of Verizon Fios customers, many of whom are the world's most influential decision-makers that seek our business-critical insight throughout their day."

Despite a major upgrade to its pay TV platform in December, Verizon Communications finished 2018 with 168,000 less Fios TV users than it had when the year started.

The wireless company, now firmly fixated on 5G technology, lost around 46,000 Fios TV users in the fourth quarter alone. This compared to a loss of 29,000 users in Q4 2017, and a loss of 75,000 in all of 2017.

Related: Verizon Shares Dip After Mixed Q4 Results

For Verizon — and for the broader pay TV business — the loss marks a turning point for what had been the industry’s fastest-growing platform, peaking at just under 4.7 million users in early 2017. Verizon ended 2018 with around 4.5 million Fios TV customers.

Related: Verizon Brightens the Corners on Pay TV Platform with Fios TV One

In December, after abandoning plans to launch a new advanced internet-protocol TV platform, Verizon rolled out on a limited basis a new equipment upgrade for its existing pay TV system, which it’s calling Fios TV One.

The upgrade, which Verizon said has been deployed to a limited number of Fios subscribers in upstate New York and New York City; Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pa.; Massachusetts markets; Richmond, Va., and several other markets, includes a voice remote and secondary receivers that are WiFi connected, meaning they don’t have to be placed near coax. Netflix is integrated directly into the user interface. And the platform is 4K/UltraHD-capable.

Speaking during Tuesday’s earnings call, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said the company is at work developing other consumer choices for video.

“We’ll of course, over time, create optionality for our customers to choose between different solutions for their TV viewing," he said. "Ultimately, we will see our customers have all the choices when it comes to how they want to consume video. We see the trends in the market.”

Separately, Verizon confirmed that it took at $4.6 billion write-down on its media group assets, formerly branded Oath and comprised of its multibillion-dollar AOL and Yahoo acquisitions. 

CBS said it has reached a multi-year carriage agreement with Verizon Communications' Fios TV, a deal that includes retransmission consent of its CBS and The CW broadcast stations and the right in the future to stream authenticated content from the broadcaster.

The pact also includes carriage of CBS pay TV properties Showtime, The Smithsonian Channel and CBS Sports Network.

In the near future, Verizon will also provide access to live authenticated streaming on CBS.com, the CBS App and Verizon’s authenticated platform, giving Verizon Fios’ TV customers the ability to stream CBS live online and on mobile devices. CBS and Verizon have agreed to expand the partnership to future digital platforms, with specifics to be released at a later date. Financial terms were not disclosed.

RELATED: CBS strikes retrans deal with Verizon Fios

“We are very pleased to expand our terrific partnership with Verizon,” CBS President, Television Networks Distribution, Ray Hopkins said in a release. “The renewal of our Fios content carriage agreement for various CBS networks and our expanded rights for future digital platforms is in line with our Company’s strategy to deliver industry-leading content to viewers across multiple platforms and screens, while also achieving both our short and long-term economic goals.”

CBS-owned stations in Verizon Fios markets, including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, and CBS-owned The CW affiliates in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, will continue to be distributed to Fios TV subscribers. This includes more than 3 million subscribers served in markets where CBS owns television stations and almost one million subscribers in markets where CBS owns The CW affiliates. (Fios has approximately 4.7 million subscribers in total.) Fios TV will also continue to provide – free to the viewer – network video-on-demand content for the Fios TV platform, plus the continued carriage of the CBS networks named above.

“With every carriage agreement we focus on achieving an outcome that best serves Fios customers based on the way they view today and the way they may want to view tomorrow, including across future digital platforms,” Verizon SVP, Product and New Business, Brian Angiolet said in the release. “Providing customers with choice remains at the core of all of our video offerings, and this agreement with CBS fits squarely into our strategy of expanding rights to fill out our emerging vertically integrated media portfolio.”

RFD-TV founder Patrick Gottsch once again is unleashing the force of his subscribers’ complaints — by phone, email and printed letter — this time on Verizon FiOS TV, as his network is slated to be dropped from the FiOS lineup on Jan. 31.

Gottsch sent Multichannel News a fat binder filled with thousands of pages of, mostly, printed-out emails that RFD-TV viewers sent him protesting the FiOS drop. Binders also were delivered to Verizon officials, including chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam and vice president of programming and marketing Terry Denson, amid other expressions of protest from RFD-TV and customers encouraged by the network to complain.

In 2013, Gottsch sent Multichannel News a similar binder from customers protesting Comcast’s planned drop of RFD-TV in some Western markets. Comcast didn’t restore the rural-focused programmer, and FiOS doesn’t seem to be prepared to change its mind either, as Gottsch said Denson told him.

“This was not one of those rate-increase fights,” Gottsch said. “It wasn’t even discussed. They just dropped us.” RFD-TV — not one of FiOS’s higher-rated channels — costs “pennies,” and Gottsch said he offered to cut the rate by 25% to forestall a drop.

Raymond McConville, a Verizon spokesman, said Friday the RFD-TV drop is part of an ongoing effort to control content costs.

Gottsch pointed out that FiOS over the past year dropped Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, BlueHighways TV and The Weather Channel, and said, “It would just seem to me that the guys in the New York office just have no connection with rural programming, and they need to get out of the office more and realize that they’ve got a substantial number of subscribers that do subscribe to Verizon for this rural-themed programming.”

McConville said Verizon had no bias against rural programming — “it’s just an unfortunate reality of the business” that sometimes channels have to be removed to control costs.