• by Wayne Friedman , July 23, 2014

Although the U.S. pay TV market has had rough times of late -- thanks to big losses in video subscribers from traditional cable operators -- estimates are that the overall market has stabilized a bit.

First-quarter cable TV losses in the U.S. were around 7,000, trimming results from the 200,000 in the previous quarter -- the fourth-quarter period of 2013 -- according to ABI Research.

The company says the North American cable TV market lost around 4% of its subscribers in 2013. This year, estimates are that it will total 113.2 million subscribers -- looking at all distributors, cable, satellite and telco. The study says the worldwide pay-TV market will get to 936.4 million at the end of 2014, generating $280.4 billion in revenue.

ABI Research says worldwide pay-TV subscriber base will climb to 1.1 billion subscribers in 2019 -- thanks to growing Asia-Pacific and Latin America marketing. Overall revenue will hit $331 billion in 2019.

The company also expects that high definition continues to grow -- and will be in homes representing 45% of the total pay-TV subscriber at the end of 2014.