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This is the scariest chart in the history of cable TV

This is the scariest chart in the history of cable TV.

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Cable subscriptions are plummeting. Pacific Crest

What we're looking at here, via Wall Street research firm Pacific Crest, is cable subscriptions falling off a cliff.

In the first half of 2015, year-over-year growth in MVPD subscribers — "multichannel video programming distributor," or, in plain English, a cable company like Time Warner Cable or Comcast — went negative.

Over the past five years, the percent of households with cable subscriptions has been falling. But with year-over-year subscribers still seeing growth, however modest, cable companies were still able to look past what some had seen as a coming cord-cutting apocalypse.

Now, that is a reality.

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In a note to clients on Tuesday, analysts at Pacific Crest revealed a few jarring trends for the media space, which saw stocks get hammered a few weeks ago after subscriber warnings from ESPN and Viacom.

Pacific Crest estimated that the top eight cable providers saw subscriptions fall 463,000 in the second quarter, up from a decline of 141,000 in the same quarter last year.

The firm also estimated that the number of households with cable has fallen 10% in the past five years, while Netflix has seen the number of households with the service nearly double, to 35% from 18%, since the third quarter of 2011.

But perhaps most troubling is the firm's contention that the demand for "skinny bundles" — slimmed-down cable packages — appears low, with Sling TV, Dish Network's "over-the-top" offering, adding fewer than 70,000 subscribers in the quarter, according to Pacific Crest's estimates.

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Meanwhile, Netflix subscriber growth clocked in at 20% over the prior year in the second quarter, while Amazon and Hulu saw subscribers rise 40% and 45%, respectively.

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Pacific Crest

Pacific Crest wrote that these trends don't appear to be anywhere near reversing.

Notably, Amazon's Fire TV was sold out as of Tuesday.

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Amazon.com

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

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