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400,000 American Homes Have Dumped Pay TV This Year

Posted by samzenpus on from the to-the-internet dept.

redkemper writes "More than 400,000 American homes have cut the cord and ditched their cable and satellite pay-TV services since the start of 2012. The figure includes 169,000 subscribers shed by Time Warner Cable last quarter, marking the service provider's tenth consecutive quarter of customer losses. It also includes the 52,000 net subscribers DirecTV lost this past quarter, and 176,000 customers who left Comcast."

16 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. I did... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...and I haven't regretted 1 minute of it.

    1. Re:I did... by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Me neither. I gave it up years ago and found better things to do with my time.

      If supermarkets worked like Cable TV you'd have your cereal sealed into the same container as hamburgers, frozen peas, a pound of apples, two candy bars, six loaves of bread, and you'd be forced to buy the whole container even if the only thing you wanted was that one brand of cereal.

      --
      Drill baby drill - on Mars
    2. Re:I did... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Good analogy, but you don't take it far enough. In reality it's more like:

      "Cereal, hamburgers, frozen peas, bread, tampax, a sears catalog, a bible, a box of adult diapers, a carton of, and a bag of that peanut taffy halloween candy that NOBODY likes" - And you pledge to buy one every month for two years, after which the price goes up unless you sign a new pledge.

    3. Re:I did... by TWX · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was coming home and watching 4+ hours of CSI every evening. It was easy to veg out to. It was mildly interesting, mildly entertaining, and required minimal thought or engagement to pay attention to. I also watched The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, and the various movie channels like TCM and AMC.

      One day I realized I was neglecting my wife, my hobbies, my chores around the house, etc. We got rid of pay cable when Turner Classic Movies was taken off of extended analog and put on to digital, which was one of the few networks that we actually cared to specifically watch.

      We went without pay TV for years, and bought our DTV decoder boxes like everyone else, and I rediscovered many of the actually good vintage shows on RTN and Me and other networks. Just recently I started playing with XBMC, and I wholly recommend it. I threw together a junk PC from parts laying around and hooked it into the component inputs on our widescreen HD tube TV, and now we can watch hundreds of "channels" worth of free content from PBS, several cable networks, Vimeo, Youtube, and lots and lots of other sources. They seem to be without commercials too.

      Now we can watch what we want, when we want, and can pursue our hobbies without having to interrupt just to watch a stupid TV show.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. Goodbye Pay TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Usenet + SAB + Sickbeard = I'm satisfied

    1. Re:Goodbye Pay TV by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you're still partaking in TV programming, regardless of the means, you haven't said goodbye to it.

      --
      Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
  3. Re:Getting there... by preaction · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, they'll see it as a reason to lobby the government to prop up their failing business model, just like every other business model disrupted by the Internet.

  4. Re:It would have counted me too by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've found that I'm much happier, more productive, and better entertained when the option of idly watching whatever is on the air is removed. Even though it's something for nothing, watching it wastes time that would have been put to better use watching shows I'm actually interested in or engaging in some other form of entertainment that I enjoy more (e.g. plowing through my backlog of games, reading a nice novel, finding a friend who I haven't seen in awhile to grab an impromptu dinner with). That's why I unplugged it: to enjoy things I like better more often.

  5. I can't think of a better use of the phrase... by ilsaloving · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And nothing of value was lost.

  6. Oblig, Star Trek Quote by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 5, Funny
    Lt. Cmdr. Data:

    That particular form of entertainment did not last much beyond the year Two Thousand Forty.

    --
    Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
  7. Re:Getting there... by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well many cable TV providers are fighting this trend by offering free service to people who want to leave. Why would they do this?

    Well, I can answer that by describing the reason why I get free bicycle magazines. I bought a bicycle a couple of years ago...a really nice one. With it, I was given a trial subscription to a cycling magazine. Nice, but not worth paying for... I would look at it if I had it, but wouldn't buy it. But that's why I got it for free. Initially, I started getting "your subscriiption is going to expire!" notices. Then I got "last issue!" notices. Then I got more magazines after that. But why? Well, the magazines are full of ads. And those ads are worthless if they can't show the advertisers they have subscribers.

    Now, let's look at cable TV... lots of ads... ads which are worthless if they don't have subscribers.

  8. Re:It would have counted me too by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At-least watch Olympics

    Why do I need to watch a corporate orgy of sponsorship and advertising where the public foots the bill and they take profit?

    So I can see which individual blessed with the right genes and the most funding can run faster or jump higher?

    I'd rather watch a Coke commercial. At least its not pretending to be something its not, and it usually has good production values.

  9. Re:Oblig. by ilsaloving · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those who found the above too long/hard to read, you can watch it here.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Gf0VKXk5Q&feature=related

    I'll just be over here soaking up the irony.

  10. Re:It would have counted me too by camperdave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought the Olympics WERE a Coke commercial.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  11. I'm watching Netflix right now by Grayhand · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I dropped Cable over the AMC fight and haven't looked back. Frustrated that I'll have to wait to see Game of Thrones and Walking Dead but maybe this latest debacle will force the content providers to sell streaming services like HBO Go. The joke is Netflix streaming doesn't carry much current content but they have a ton of older stuff and they are adding faster than I can consume so at this rate I'll never run out. I mostly let it run while I work for white noise anyway. It's got the added benefit of no annoying commercials. It's why I stopped watching CNN, their ratio of news to commercials is 50/50. Completely obscene.

  12. Re:Getting there... by erroneus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shut up. I'm old. I like to tell stories to make me think my life is meaningful.