The live TV streaming market has come a long way since the early days, and with a variety of live TV services to now pick from, consumers have more choice than ever before, and at varying price points.
All of which makes for an interesting landscape when looking at the number of subscribers each service has, how they compare to each other, and how those subscriber bases have changed (for better or worse) over time.
Subscriber tracker — summary
Disclaimer: The information listed in this tracker relates to the most recently confirmed subscriber numbers and does not take into account third-party estimates. Due to this, some of the figures might not be completely up to date and dependent on when the company last publicly released data.
Subscriber tracker summary: updated Nov. 2023
| Service | Subscribers | As of |
|---|---|---|
| DirecTV Stream | 656,000 | Jan. 2021 |
| Fubo | 1.47 million* | Oct. 2023 |
| Hulu Live TV | 4.6 million | Oct. 2023 |
| Philo | 800,000 | Nov. 2020 |
| Sling TV | 2.12 million | Oct. 2023 |
| Vidgo | Unknown | N/A |
| YouTube TV | 5 million | July 2022 |
As seen in the table above, YouTube TV is widely credited with being the live TV streaming service with the most subscribers in the United States. YouTube TV is followed by Hulu Live TV and Sling TV in second and third place, respectively.
While the pie chart above excludes DirecTV Stream (due to the lack of recent data) and Vidgo (due to no available data), it does provide some insight into how the main services compare in terms of their confirmed subscriber bases.
Subscriber tracker — history
The information below provides a closer look at the subscriber history of the main live TV streaming services in the United States. You can use the links below to jump to a specific service.
DirecTV Stream subscriber tracker
DirecTV Stream is one of the few services that doesn’t provide information on the number of subscribers. As a result, it is currently unclear just how many there are and how the service compares to the competition. This wasn’t always the case, however. Subscriber numbers were previously revealed when the service was operating as DirecTV Now and AT&T TV Now.
Originally, DirecTV Now started off quite strong and quickly grew beyond one million subscribers. In 2019, the subscriber losses started and continued up until official numbers stopped being reported at the start of 2021, prior to the DirecTV spinoff.
DirecTV Now/DirecTV Stream subscriber history
DirecTV Now launched in late 2016 and was delivering live TV to more than 200,000 subscribers by the start of 2017. That number rose to 1,200,000 by the start of 2018, and to 1,590,000 by the start of 2019.
By the start of 2020, and following a rebrand to AT&T TV Now, the number of subscribers dropped to 926,000. The decline did not stop there, with the number confirmed to be 656,000 at the start of 2021.
Soon after, the service was rebranded as DirecTV Stream and subscriber numbers stopped being provided.
| As of | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 200,000 |
| 2018 | 1,200,000 |
| 2019 | 1,590,000 |
| 2020 | 926,000 |
| 2021 | 656,000 |
| DirecTV Stream | |
 | $80+ 75+ channels 20 streams (at home) Unlimited DVR Save $50 and Get Sports Pack |
Fubo subscriber tracker
Fubo releases updated subscriber information each quarter making it easy to know how the live TV service is doing at any given time.
However, and unlike many of the other services on this list, Fubo operate in multiple countries. As a result, Fubo tends to release separate numbers for North America and ROW (rest of world) markets, as well as a global total.
In spite of not being quite as popular as some other services, Fubo has consistently attracted more new users each year.
Fubo (North America) subscriber history
Fubo was delivering live TV to 315,789 subscribers in North America at the start of 2020. One year later and the number of subscribers had grown to 547,880. By the start of 2022, the number of Fubo subscribers totaled 1,130,000, almost double what the service had a year before.
Fubo closed out 2022 and entered 2023 with 1.445 million subscribers.
| As of | Subscribers (US) |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 315,789 |
| 2021 | 547,880 |
| 2022 | 1,130,000 |
| 2023 | 1,445,000 |
| Oct. | 1,470,000 |
| Fubo | |
 | $75+ a month 173+ channels 10 streams 1000-hour DVR Save $20/mo For 2 Months |
Hulu Live TV subscriber tracker
Hulu Live TV is majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company and subscriber numbers are released each quarter along with the latest basic Hulu, Disney Plus and ESPN Plus numbers. In general, Hulu Live TV continues to be one of the more popular live TV streaming services in the United States.
In spite of its popularity, Hulu Live TV does appear to have stalled a little in terms of growth. While Hulu quickly climbed up to four million subscribers, its subscriber base has largely leveled off since then.
Hulu Live TV subscriber history
Hulu launched its live TV service in May of 2017 and by September of 2018 was already delivering live TV to more than 1 million subscribers. That number had increased to over 3 million by 2020, and 4 million by 2021.
Hulu closed out 2022 and entered 2023 with 4.5 million live TV subscribers.
| As of | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,700,000 |
| 2020 | 3,200,000 |
| 2021 | 4,000,000 |
| 2022 | 4,300,000 |
| 2023 | 4,500,000 |
| Oct. | 4,600,000 |
| Hulu Live TV | |
 | $77+ a month 90+ channels 2 streams Unlimited DVR Disney+ and ESPN+ Sign up |
Philo subscriber tracker
Philo is one of the companies that doesn’t provide regular updates on the number of subscribers, making it difficult to know how many there are.
The last time Philo confirmed the size of its subscriber base was back in November 2020. At that time, Philo was delivering live TV to more than 800,000 subscribers.
| Philo | |
 | $25/month 70+ channels 3 streams Unlimited DVR $12.50 1st month with “DeckTheHallMark23” |
Sling TV subscriber tracker
Sling TV is owned by Dish and updated subscriber data is released each quarter. This routine release of information makes it easy to see how Sling TV is doing over the course of a given year, or years in general.
Sling TV is one of those services that seems to have reached a barrier in terms of new subscribers.
While the number of subscribers continuously changes each quarter and year, Sling TV has routinely been hovering between 2 and 2.5 million subscribers since 2018.
Sling TV subscriber history
Sling TV launched in 2015, and by the start of 2018, was already providing live TV to more than 2 million homes. Sling TV hasn’t managed to climb above 3 million since then, but also hasn’t dropped below 2 million either.
Sling TV closed out 2022 and entered 2023 with 2.3 million subscribers.
| As of | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 2,212,000 |
| 2019 | 2,420,000 |
| 2020 | 2,590,000 |
| 2021 | 2,470,000 |
| 2022 | 2,490,000 |
| 2023 | 2,334,000 |
| Oct. | 2,120,000 |
| Sling Orange | |
 | $40/month 32 channels 1 stream 50 hours DVR 50% Off Your First Month |
Vidgo subscriber tracker
Similar to DirecTV Stream and Philo, Vidgo is another company that chooses not to release regular information on the number of subscribers.
Due to this, it remains unclear how many people are paying for live TV through Vidgo. As Vidgo has never publicly released subscriber data, we also have no last reported figure to use as a baseline.
| Vidgo | |
 | $69.99+ a month 110+ channels 3 streams 20 hours DVR $20 first month |
YouTube TV subscriber tracker
YouTube is a little inconsistent in terms of when it releases updated YouTube TV subscriber numbers, so it is never really clear how just many subscribers there are.
With no quarterly figures released, it is also near-impossible to know if and when YouTube TV loses any subscribers. Instead, YouTube tends to release milestone announcements, continuously painting a positive picture of the service.
YouTube TV issued a press release in July of 2022 confirming that it was delivering live TV to more than 5 million subscribers. With 5 million confirmed subscribers, YouTube TV is widely considered to be the most popular live TV streaming service in the US.
YouTube TV subscriber history
YouTube TV initially launched in 2017, albeit in a limited state. It wasn’t until 2019 when the service would become available nationwide and, by then, it had already accumulated more than 1 million subscribers.
Each year since then, YouTube TV had roughly added another 1 million subscribers.
| As of | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,000,000 |
| 2020 | 2,000,000 |
| 2021 | 3,000,000 |
| 2022 | 4,000,000 |
| 2023 | 5,000,000 |
Note: Current estimations suggest YouTube TV is delivering live TV to more than 6 million subscribers. However, the last official confirmation (July 2022) from Google or YouTube was 5 million.
| YouTube TV | |
 | $73 a month 100+ channels 3 streams Unlimited DVR $50.99/mo for 3 months |
