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Cable companies, and pay TV in general have been fighting an uphill battle in recent years. With the advent of online video streaming services, and increased competition from fiber providers like Verizon Fios, cable companies have been forced to work a little harder to keep their customers happy. It seems that those efforts haven’t gone so well, as the second fiscal quarter of 2010 was not very good for cable companies.

Market research firm SNL Kagan’s research showed a drop in cable TV subscribers. The drop was a steep one too. The number of cable subscribers dropped by 711,000 in the second quarter. Six out of the eight cable providers they surveyed reported the worst quarterly loss of subscribers to date. Other arms of the cable industry added some subscribers making the net loss somewhere near 216,000, but even with the gains in other departments, this is still a record breaking loss for the industry.

Cable’s share of the paid TV market took a hit too. Previously they were sitting at 63.6% market share, and after the second quarter, that’s down to just 61%. This is bad news for cable companies, but great news for satellite and fiber television providers, as they might have the opportunity to pick up some of the subscribers that cable companies lost.

As for what’s causing the drop, it might not be what you think. It might seem easy to blame the decline in cable subscribers on online video services, but SNL Kagan pins the blame on economic issues instead, citing a housing shift in college towns during the second quarter, as well as unemployment. Online video may have played a part, but it wasn’t the main culprit.

Internet video services may not have caused it this time, but we can’t help but wonder if the decline in cable subscribers will continue. If not, then the speculation that online video services had nothing to do with it would appear accurate. If the decline continues, then it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that there is some consistent, non-economic factor hindering cable companies. Only time will tell for sure, but it’s hard to imagine that online video services like Youtube, Netflix, and Hulu won’t begin to eat into cable subscribers eventually. The cost of cable TV, combined with the increasing ease with which those services can be accessed from your TV could spell future disaster for cable companies.