TDG wrote in the report that after the recession, many Americans were looking to cut unnecessary expenses, which kicked off a trend of cord cutting. Coupled with the rise of digital streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, these trends contributed to traditional pay TV’s decline.

The number of US households still shelling out for cable has fallen every year since 2012. If the trend continues on the current path, TDG predicts the percentage of US households subscribing to pay TV will drop to 60 percent in the next 13 years.

TDG Senior Analyst Joel Espelie said the analyst firm realised early on that the future of TV was an app but most incumbent multi-channel video providers ignored them.

"The question is no longer if the future of TV is an app, but how quickly and economically incumbents can adapt to this truth and transition to an all-broadband app-based live multi-channel system."

Now cable or home phones are a luxury add-on for Americans who just want an internet connection. Last year, the number of broadband households surpassed the number of legacy pay TV households, according to the report.

Cost is a major driver of this shift: the cost of bundling a few favorite streaming services together still pales in comparison to the average cable bill. TDG found that two thirds of cord cutters and “cord nevers” (people who have never paid for cable) said service expense was the key reason they do not use legacy pay TV services.

But there’s also a generational shift: 61 percent of adults aged 18-29 say online streaming services are the primary way they watch TV, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. It was the only age group where cable doesn’t reign supreme, with cable’s significance increasing by age group.