Scratch the theory that the cord cut may be slowing down.

Cable and satellite TV providers lost about 1.1 million subscribers between July and September, the largest quarterly loss ever recorded. This is the first time that the sector has lost more than a million subscribers in a quarter, according to media and telecommunications research firm MoffettNathanson.

After Dish Network released its results for the third quarter on Wednesday, the New York-based research company calculated subscriber losses reported publicly to achieve results.

Dish lost 341,000 subscribers in the third quarter, up from 16,000 in the same period last year. In total, Dish lost 367,000 subscribers to the satellite, but added 26,000 subscribers to Sling TV, the company said.

Rich Greenfield, a media and technology analyst at BTIG, a New York-based financial services firm, came to a similar conclusion and termed it "the third-worst quarter in the history of banking." Industry and worst of all time since the second quarter of 2016 ".

This continues to worsen the trend of satellite TV providers. Two weeks ago, AT & T announced that DirecTV had lost 297,000 net subscribers in the quarter – 359,600 satellite subscribers had left, while 49,000 new subscribers had been added to its streaming service, DirecTV Now. In total, AT & T has 25.15 million pay-TV subscribers; Directv, 19.6 million; U-Verse, 3.7 million; and DirecTV Now, 1.86 million.

With respect to satellite television departures, the industry lost 726,000 subscribers during this period. Telecom TV services, which include U-Verse from AT & T and Verizon FiOS, have lost 104,000 customers combined.

Cable TV providers lost about 293,000 for the quarter, but its trends "are improving slightly," suggests MoffettNathanson, with the sector losing 322,000 in the same period last year.

While Comcast lost the largest number of video subscribers (106,000), it also added 363,000 broadband subscribers.

The slowdown in growth of DirecTV Now and Sling TV could suggest that the "price sensitivity" of broadband television services could "turn out to be larger than expected," after several of the services grew prices, analysts said.

MoffettNathanson has not listed the number of companies for services such as fuboTV, but said there were "anecdotal reports on the strong growth of small players" that could suggest a "change of leadership "in the services provided by broadband. FuboTV announced last month that its number of subscribers had doubled from last year, rising to 250,000. The Motley Fool estimated that YouTube TV had over 800,000 subscribers and the PlayStation Vue, more than 500,000. Two months ago, Hulu claimed to have exceeded one million subscribers.

Overall, approximately 78% of US TV households subscribe to some form of pay television service, down from 86% in 2013, according to Leichtman Research Group.

Between April and June, major pay-TV providers lost about 415,000 subscribers, the smallest net loss in four years during a traditionally depressed quarter, the firm said.

Some said it was a sign that the cord cut was slowing down. Not so, MoffettNathanson says. An increase in the number of new households – many of which will appear as new pay-TV subscribers – has masked the defections of long-standing customers, say analysts.

With new homes running "249,000 homes per quarter faster than a year ago", you should expect "about 200,000 additional subscribers per quarter, on average" compared to a year ago.

As this is not the case, the verdict is as follows: "The cut of the cord does not seem to slow down at all," they said.

More: We discovered why more satellite customers were cutting the cord – higher fees

More: Expect Netflix rivals thanks to the AT & T-Time Warner merger

Follow the USA TODAY reporter, Mike Snider, on Twitter: @ MikeSnider.

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