Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan says cable companies should start to feel financial pressure from customers that cancel subscriptions to view online video by about the year 2012.

The top cable broadband providers have a 55% share of the overall market, with a 6.2 million subscriber advantage over the top telephone companies.

Overall, broadband additions in 1Q 2009 amounted to 73% of those in 1Q 2008 – with cable having 70% as many additions as a year ago, and Telcos 77%.

The top cable companies added over 835,000 subscribers, representing 52% of the net broadband additions for the quarter versus the top telephone companies.

The twenty largest cable and telephone providers in the US – representing about 94% of the market – acquired over 1.6 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the first quarter of 2009.

Competition from DBS and Telcos resulted in a loss of over 850,000 video subscribers for the cable industry in 2008.

The cable industry added over seven million high speed Internet and telephone subscribers in 2008.

LRG found that at the end of 1Q 2009, the top ten cable companies had broadband available to 99% of its collective footprint (representing a total of 114.3 million passings).

With a penetration rate of 60%, broadband’s growth has slowed to 8% this year from double digits last year, with telcos owning a 44% share to cable’s 63%.