• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, August 23, 2010

There may be debate about the level of cord-cutting -- pundits are all over the map -- regarding how often Hulu users hook up their computers to massive flat screens. But a new report shows a decline, albeit slight, in video customers of cable/satellite/telco TV providers in the second quarter.

There was a combined drop of 216,000 from this year's first quarter to the recent April-June period, according to SNL Kagan, which called it the "worst performance on record" period-to-period.

That may be partly due to college students who are home for the summer. Still, in the same period a year ago, there was a 378,000 increase.

According to a meld of Kagan and Nielsen figures, 87% of American homes (100.1 million) receive video service from one of the multichannel video programmer distributors (MVPDs).

Sharp declines in video subscribers among Comcast (679,000) and Time Warner Cable (300,000), the two largest cable operators, led to much of the drop. Dish Network lost 19,000 net subscribers.

AT&T's U-verse (209,000), Verizon's FiOS (174,000) and DirecTV (100,000) posted gains.

Cable operators' share of the video marketplace now stands at 61%, with telco TV gaining to 6% and satellite holding steady with the remaining customer base.

Kagan analyst Mariam Rondeli stated that cord-cutting, or so-called over-the-top usage, is "tempting to point to" as contributors to the subscriber decline. But Rondeli says "economic factors, such as low housing formation and a high unemployment rate," were the principal drivers.

Also, the digital transition in the April-June quarter in 2009 may have led to a bump in subscribers that didn't appear in 2010.