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, and at different price points, consumers have more choice than ever before.
All of which makes for an interesting landscape when looking at the number of subscribers each service has. This is in addition to how they compare to each other, and how the 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 figures are not completely up to date and dependent on when the company last publicly released data.
Subscriber tracker summary: updated June 2026
| SERVICE | SUBSCRIBERS | AS OF |
|---|---|---|
| DirecTV (Streaming) | 656,000 | Jan. 2021 |
| Frndly TV | 700,000 | Dec. 2022 |
| Fubo (inc. Hulu Live TV) | 5.7 million | April 2026 |
| Philo | 1.3 million | Feb. 2025 |
| Sling TV | 1.79 million | April 2026 |
| YouTube TV | 8 million | Feb. 2024 |
As seen in the table above, YouTube TV is the live TV streaming service with the most subscribers in the United States, and by some margin.
YouTube TV is followed by the combined total of Fubo and Hulu Live TV in second place, and Sling TV in third place.
While the chart above excludes DirecTV (due to the lack of recent data), it does provide some insight into how the main services compare in terms of their confirmed subscriber bases.
Subscriber Tracker — History
Now we’ll take 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 Subscriber Tracker
DirecTV (formerly DirecTV Stream) is one of the few services that no longer provides information on the number of subscribers. Due to this, it is currently unclear just how many there are, and how the service compares to the competition.
This wasn’t always the case, as subscriber numbers were previously revealed when the service was operating as DirecTV Now and AT&T TV Now.
Based on previous confirmed numbers, 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 spin-off of DirecTV.
DirecTV Streaming 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 at 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.
The service was rebranded as DirecTV Stream soon after and subscriber numbers stopped being reported.
| As of | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 200,000 |
| 2018 | 1,200,000 |
| 2019 | 1,590,000 |
| 2020 | 926,000 |
| 2021 | 656,000 |
Frndly TV Subscriber Tracker
Frndly TV launched in August 2019 and is another live TV service that does not provide regular updates on the size of its subscriber base. As a result, it remains unclear how many people are using Frndly TV from one quarter to the next.
The last time Frndly TV provided a subscriber update was back in December 2022. At that time, Frndly TV confirmed the subscriber base stood at 700,000.
Fubo & Hulu Live TV Subscriber Tracker
As of February 2026, and following the merger of Fubo and Hulu Live TV, the two live TV streaming services no longer provide individual subscriber updates.
Instead, Fubo now reports a combined total for both services, making it difficult to know exactly how many subscribers each service has.
As of April 2026, Fubo reported a combined total of 5.7 million Fubo and Hulu Live TV subscribers.
Fubo Subscriber History (North America)
Fubo was delivering live TV to 315,789 subscribers in North America at the start of 2020. One year later and the number had grown to 547,880. By the start of 2022, the number of Fubo subscribers totaled 1,130,000, almost double a year before.
After ending 2022 with 1.45 million subscribers, 2023 with 1.62 million subscribers, Fubo closed 2024 with 1.68 million subscribers in North America.
| As of | Subscribers (NA) |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 315,789 |
| 2021 | 547,880 |
| 2022 | 1,130,000 |
| 2023 | 1,445,000 |
| 2024 | 1,541,290 |
| 2025 | 1,637,487 |
| Q4 ’25 | 1,631,000 |
At the last count (Oct. 2025), Fubo had 1.63 million paid subscribers (rounded) in North America.
Hulu Live TV Subscriber History
Hulu launched its live TV service in May of 2017, and by September of 2018, it was already serving more than one million subscribers. That number increased to over three million by 2020 and four million by 2021.
While the number of subscribers have increased and decreased since then, the number has tended to remain between 4 and 4.6 million.
For example, Hulu closed out 2023 with 4.6 million live TV subscribers, and 2024 with 4.6 million subscribers.
| As of | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,700,000 |
| 2020 | 3,200,000 |
| 2021 | 4,000,000 |
| 2022 | 4,300,000 |
| 2023 | 4,500,000 |
| 2024 | 4,600,000 |
| 2025 | 4,600,000 |
| Q4 ’25 | 4,400,000 |
At the last count (Oct. 2025), Hulu had 4.4 million live TV subscribers.
Philo Subscriber Tracker
Philo is another company that doesn’t provide regular updates on the number of subscribers, making it difficult to draw regular comparisons with other services at any given time.
The last time Philo confirmed the size of its subscriber base was in February 2025. At that time, Philo was delivering live TV to more than 1.3 million subscribers.
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.
While the number does always fluctuate, Sling TV is a service that seems to have reached a barrier in terms of new subscribers.
Sling TV Subscriber History
Sling TV launched in 2015, and by the start of 2018, was providing live TV to more than 2 million homes. While that number climbed as high as 2.6 million at the start of 2020, the number has continually declined since then.
For example, Sling TV closed out 2023 with 2.06 million subscribers, 2024 with 2.09 million subscribers, and 2025 with 1.98 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 |
| 2024 | 2,060,000 |
| 2025 | 2,090,000 |
| 2026 | 1,980,000 |
As of Q2 2026, Sling TV had 1.79 million subscribers (rounded).
YouTube TV Subscriber Tracker
As YouTube is very inconsistent in terms of when it releases updated YouTube TV subscriber numbers, 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 subscribers. Instead, YouTube tends to release milestone announcements, continuously painting a positive picture of the subscriber base.
The last time YouTube provided an official figure, YouTube TV was delivering live TV to more than 8 million subscribers, making it 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 has routinely added more subscribers.
In February of 2024, YouTube TV confirmed more than eight million subscribers.
As that was more than two years ago, the number is expected to have increased since then, with recent estimates suggesting the current figure is more than 10 million.
| As of | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,000,000 |
| 2020 | 2,000,000 |
| 2021 | 3,000,000 |
| 2022 | 4,000,000 |
| 2023 | 5,000,000 |
| 2024 | 8,000,000 |
Start the conversation