There was a time cable TV seemed ubiquitous. It felt like every home had replaced the rabbit-ear antennas on top of their TV set with a cable box that brought the local channels along with popular networks like ESPN, MTV, CNN, the Discovery Channel and Nickelodeon.
In less than a decade, though, the cable TV audience in the Portland area has collapsed.
The number of cable subscribers in Portland and some of its Multnomah County suburbs has plunged by 60%, from 176,000 in 2016 to about 70,000 last year. That’s according to the Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission, which oversees cable TV service in nearly all of Multnomah County.
“As more streaming and digital media options become available, traditional cable subscriptions have steadily decreased across the nation, including within the MHCRC service area,” said Seema Kumar, chief of Portland’s Community Technology program.
People are choosing to stream movies and TV shows on Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime instead of watching TNT or the Lifetime channel — or they’re choosing short-form videos on their phones, watching TikTok and Instagram.
Roughly one-in-five homes in Multnomah County have cable TV today. That’s smaller than the share of Oregonians with a landline phone.
Cable subscriptions have fallen nationally, too, but not quite as far. S&P Analysis says about a third of U.S. homes have cable TV.
The drop-off in cable subscriptions explains big changes in the TV landscape, like the Portland Trail Blazers moving from a regional sports cable network last year and returning to free, over-the-air TV. So pull the rabbit ears out of the closet. They fit nicely behind your flat-screen TV.
“The video marketplace has undergone massive change over the past 10 years, so subscriber numbers alone don’t tell the whole story,” said Rachael Arnold, spokesperson for Comcast, Portland’s dominant cable TV provider.
Even as its cable TV business has shrunk, Comcast has grown into the nation’s largest internet provider. So it has benefited from the growth of streaming networks like Peacock — which Comcast owns — and from internet-based cable alternatives, like Fubo and YouTube TV.
“Consumers have more choices for the content they want to watch than ever before,” Arnold said.
Cutting off cable doesn’t necessarily save viewers money, though.
Streaming alternatives like YouTube TV ($83 a month) cost nearly as much. And if you’re adding up the cost of your internet subscription, cell phone plan and streaming networks like Netflix, you could be paying more than you were for cable.
But the streaming era does mean viewers have more choices about how they watch video, and how much they pay to watch TV.
This is Oregon Insight, The Oregonian’s weekly look at the numbers behind the state’s economy. View past installments here.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
