It all started with a simple sentence. "Trends among younger audiences ... will continue to put pressure on the multichannel ecosystem," said Disney CEO Bob Iger during the company's third-quarter conference call on Aug. 4. Those comments stoked fears of cord cutting and sent shares of Disney and other media companies into a tailspin. According to a new survey, Iger's fears may be justified. The data show that the so-called "cord-cutting" phenomenon—where consumers jettison traditional cable and satellite packages in favor of streaming services—is about to get a lot worse. A new report by Magid Advisors surveyed 2,400 consumers and found that cord cutting is not only on the rise, but it's happening much quicker than industry watchers anticipated. According to Magid, 3.7 percent of pay TV subscribers age 18 to 64 said they were "extremely likely" to cancel their pay TV service in the next 12 months. That number is up from 2.9 percent in 2014, and represents a 95 percent increase over results from 2011. Read More TV won digital wars without firing a shot: Author

"This is not some sort of a cliff problem; this is more of a very slow drip-drip-drip problem," Magid President Mike Vorhaus told CNBC's "Fast Money" this week.



"3.7 percent is a pretty important number if you're trying to grow by 10 or 15 percent a year," he added. "That's another 3 or 4 percent that you've got to pick up. And all these small numbers add up to big dollars over time." Even more significant are the results from respondents in the 25 to 34 age-range. Among that demographic, 7.1 percent of pay TV subscribers said they were "very likely" to cancel their service in the next 12 months. The results are even gloomier among current non-subscribers. Just 5 percent of respondents said they were "very likely" to subscribe to pay TV service within the next 12 months.

'Getting worse by the day'