Nolte: Cord-Cutting Hit Record Highs in 2020 23 Feb 2021 More people cut the cable-satellite TV cord than ever before in 2020, which is pretty remarkable when you consider how the coronavirus kept everyone at home for most of the year. There are now two types of cable TV. The original is what most of us know as cable TV, where the programming comes in via an actual cable. For the sake of this study, this is called a “Multichannel Video Programming Distributor” or MVPD (Comcast, DirecTV, etc.). The latest version of the MVPD is the “Virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributor” or VMVPD. This is where you stream the equivalent of cable TV (Sling, DirecTV Now, Hulu Live).