Cutting the Cord? Time Warner Loses 184,000 TV Subscribers In One Quarter

Mr D from 63 (3395377) writes Time Warner Cable's results have been buoyed recently by higher subscriber numbers for broadband Internet service. In the latest period, however, Time Warner Cable lost 184,000 overall residential customer relationships [Note: non-paywalled coverage at Bloomberg and Reuters]. The addition of 92,000 residential high-speed data customers was offset by 184,000 fewer residential video customers in the quarter. Triple play customers fell by 24,000, while residential voice additions were 14,000.

Comments

They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[i kan reed]

And I asked myself quite reasonably, "Why the fuck do I have cable TV?"

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Minimum basic cable price (if I don't want to sell my entire soul to the cableco) where I am is $39.48 + $3.99 for a converter box + 13% taxes + some other silly fees I've forgotten about (LPIF?), every month. Ends up about $54. As encouragement for me to never sign up again, they'll punish me with a $49.99 one time bonus fee.

Primewire, netflix and even sometimes the sites for the stations themselves gives me all the content I need (no hulu in my country). I'd actually pay $20 for what I watch on top of Netflix, but it has to be equally convenient and unlimited to what I get now, and typically anything I've seen isn't. Basic cable is a joke.

Cable TV can DIAF.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[TWX]

Yup. We got rid of cable TV something like five years ago. Keeping it was already in jeopardy when I realized I was coming home from work and watching four hours of CSI every evening on Spike, and starting to see reruns of episodes that I could have sworn were just shown, and the straw that broke the camel's back was the removal of Turner Classic Movies from our cable package. Since getting rid of cable we've found ourselves actually engaging in our hobbies again, as opposed to just passively staring at the screen.

A lady at work the other day didn't seem to know that one could still receive over-the-air broadcasts for television. I wonder how many people don't realize this and are paying for TV that they don't want or need.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[mrchaotica]

Minimum basic cable price (if I don't want to sell my entire soul to the cableco) where I am is $39.48 + $3.99 for a converter box

They blatantly lie and claim that the box is "necessary" "because digital", but it isn't. The real reason they want you to use the box is because of their unilateral insistence on encrypting even the signals that you'd otherwise be able to get unencrypted from an antenna anyway, so that they can charge you a rental fee. But even then, it still isn't necessary because you can get a CableCard instead.

When I had cable TV (only because the TV + internet bundle was cheaper than internet-only that year), I refused the box (and refused to be charged for the box) as a matter of principle.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Anonymous Coward]

I figure between watching MSNBC, FoxNews and CNN...I get some idea of the truth between them all.

Only if you want news biased to a conservative, American ego-centric sources.

If you think you're getting the truth by watching those three sources, you're sadly mistaken.

CNN hasn't been an objective source of news for over a decade now. Fox never was.

Add some international stuff to your news, because with only 3 US sources, you're pretty far from objective truth and balanced coverage.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Adriax]

Local cable company recently swapped to a completely digital signal so everyone had to rent a new tuner box for every TV in their house (at something like $10 a month each). We stopped using cable but my dad kept with it.
One thing he noticed is his internet connection went to (even more) shit after the change. So he disconnected all the TVs yesterday and wired it so the cable signal just goes to the modem.
3x the download speeds and half the ping time, plus he loved not having to deal with constant commercials as he watched the news on his computer.

Cable companies are shooting themselves in the foot trying to squeeze a couple extra drops of revenue out of people.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[drinkypoo]

But really....I watch a swath of new channels from the right (Fox) to the far left (MSNBC) and the more moderate ones....and try to get my own sense of balance between all of them.

heh heh MSNBC far left HAHAHAHAHAHA

This is what you get when you depend on video for news, you can think that centrists are leftists

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[RobinH]

GP said they weren't in the US, so CableCard might not be an option. I am in Canada and nobody here offers CableCard, which is why we had to give up TiVo when it came time to get an HDTV. TiVo is CableCard only (and there's a good reason for it). The real reason they want to encrypt everything is to rent you the DVR.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Quirkz]

I actually feel like I gained something by the number of commercials I'm avoiding, far in excess of any entertainment possibly lost by cutting the cord. Occasionally if we travel or we're at someone's house and the TV is on, my three-year-old daughter asks me what's going on when there's a commercial and the show isn't playing. I think it's kind of awesome she's confused by them, rather than considering them part of life.

Occasionally I'll go over-air to catch a football game, but I've hit the point where after seeing the same commercials five times in fifteen minutes, I get bored and wander off, and then forget to come back for twenty minutes, invariably at another commercial break, and wander off again. It's a refreshing new way of life.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I"m not that interested frankly, in the news of the world for the most part...why would I?

Because understanding the difference between what get said inside the echo chamber that is America, and what gets said outside of America might actually help you understand that Americans only see the world through their own lens. And they're frequently clueless as a result.

.I watch a swath of new channels from the right (Fox) to the far left (MSNBC)

If you think Fox and MSNBC define the right and the left ... then you really are a clueless American. What passes for 'left' in America is pretty severely to the right in the rest of the world.

But what happens outside of the US, has very little impact on the average US citizens life....

Not true.

Know all those pesky little wars you've been getting into over the last few decades? The reaons, rationale, and historical context for all of those are pretty much entirely different inside and outside of the US.

Americans think "Oh, we went in and saved the world". The rest of the world think, "Oh, here come the naive fucking Americans who think they're saving the world, but really doing sound-bite foreign policy with no real understanding of the issues".

The next time your government tells you you're going to war for a reason, you might actually know if it's a lie.

Despite claims to the contrary, the US does not intervene on moral, humanitarian, or principled stances ... they intervene purely on the basis of strategic oil, and what plays well in the domestic market.

America isn't the champion of democracy and freedom they like to think they are, America actively undermines those things elsewhere in the world.

And then when they do, they often impose conservative, American, Christian values on their aid ... like allowing Monsanto corn to be given as aid, with the expectation starving people won't keep seeds ... or disallowing any form of access to birth control even if it would benefit poor women around the world ... or any number of reasons.

America isn't nearly as good or perfect as the people who live there like to think.

And part of the problem is you haven't got the slightest idea of what is happening in the world around you.

At a minimum, you might understand the reasons why people dislike you. And then you might actually be collectively aware enough to stop being such assholes.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[cayenne8]

If you think Fox and MSNBC define the right and the left ... then you really are a clueless American. What passes for 'left' in America is pretty severely to the right in the rest of the world.

And precisely why would I give a fuck what is "right" and "left" in other parts of the world?

If I wanted to live in a left leaning, more socialist part of the world, I would.

I prefer the US.

I will agree, the US and its polices aren't the "good guy" ones of the past, I blame that on corporate money takeover of our govt.

But I don't really care what the world thinks of us. I really don't, I have too much of my own life occupying my time and efforts. I don't have time to waste worrying if country X doesn't like me really, as long as they leave me alone and don't throw a weapon at me.

I do think if the US *did* pull fully out of world politics and wars...there'd be a lot of screaming that "the US doesn't do anything, they don't share, they don't help"...etc.

Hell, if we pulled fully out of all the bases and all in Europe, there would likely be a lot of pissed off people when they found they had to start pulling all that funding for free healthcare and 3 month vacations in order to pay for their own self defense in the big bad world. The US covers a lot of your countries' defense cost allowing you to spend your money on other things.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[mrchaotica]

Buy a new cable modem every year or two

Every year or two?! What are you talking about?

In the decade or so I've used cable Internet, I've only owned two cable modems, and I only had to get the second one recently because Comcast forced me to upgrade from DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3. I expect my current modem to last at least another decade (or I would, if I didn't expect to switch to Google Fiber sooner).

There haven't been enough DOCSIS versions invented to necessitate you upgrading your modem anywhere close to yearly!

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[RavenLrD20k]

When the government put out regulations where companies couldn't use lead-based solder in consumer electronics products anymore (it's still widely available for private purchase), all electronic devices began suffering significantly shorter operational life. The lead kept the solder from developing micro-fractures that eventually caused joints to arc, or disconnecting altogether. If you're handy with a soldering iron, you can often resurrect dead electronics by touching heat to the joints which has the effect of making the solder become molten again and thus eliminating the fractures. Under constant operating conditions it can take about 2-3 years for the fractures to progress to the point where a device will no longer work properly. It's one reason why you hear about Red-Rings-of-Death, Red lights of death, etc. from gaming systems released in the last 10-15 years while a good portion of classic systems from the Atari, to the Oddessy2, to the Sega Master System, to the N64 can still be found 20-30 years later still running as well as they did on day one. You always hear the phrase "They don't make 'em like they used to." It's because literally (in the very literal sense, not figuratively speaking type of literally), they don't.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[mrchaotica]

Depending on where you live or who your provider is you may be able to get analog cable despite the claims. My local cable company tells you that it's digital only and you must have a card/box. My dad plugged his coax straight into his tv (which does not have or support a card) and he gets about 100 channels. So, I say try plugging the coax in and find out what is really what.

That's what I had done until Comcast started encrypting everything.

The FCC sold us out about two years ago.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[macromorgan]

Minimum basic cable price (if I don't want to sell my entire soul to the cableco) where I am is $39.48 + $3.99 for a converter box

They blatantly lie and claim that the box is "necessary" "because digital", but it isn't. The real reason they want you to use the box is because of their unilateral insistence on encrypting even the signals that you'd otherwise be able to get unencrypted from an antenna anyway, so that they can charge you a rental fee. But even then, it still isn't necessary because you can get a CableCard instead.

When I had cable TV (only because the TV + internet bundle was cheaper than internet-only that year), I refused the box (and refused to be charged for the box) as a matter of principle.

They are prohibited by FCC mandate from encrypting over the air channels, those must be broadcast "in the clear", and with the copy protect flag set to "copy freely". You just need a tuner capable of grabbing Clear QAM signals to view it (some TVs but not all). If you see a violation of this you can report it to the FCC and they'll get in big trouble. As for the rest of the channels, Time Warner Cable is objectively the worst cable provider, in that they encrypt ALL channels (excluding the Discovery Channel) that they aren't required to decrypt by law. They also set the copy protect flag to "copy once" on all channels except those they are required not to by law. Comcast is a better TV provider than Time Warner Cable, and that's saying something. Comcast uses the copy protect flag more sparingly, and offers more Clear QAM channels. If the merger goes through the only silver lining is that my TV will get better (while my Internet gets far worse... fucking data caps should not exist on wired broadband).

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Yaztromo]

I was in the same boat you were. I was a very happy TiVo customer here in Canada, until we moved to an HDTV.

The funny thing was having to try to convince the customer service woman at TiVo that no, I couldn't upgrade to TiVo HD. The concept that I couldn't get a CableCard from my local provider was so alien to her that I had to explain it several times (and even point her to TiVo's own webpage explaining why TiVo HD wasn't available in Canada). Even then I don't think she was quite convinced.

I guess that TiVo had so few Canadian customers that she really hadn't had to deal with the situation before. I still miss out old TiVo; the Motorola box we got from Shaw is great for 1080p video and Dolby Digital audio (neither of which our TiVo 2 could handle); but the user interface and software absolutely suck compared to the TiVo. It's always trying to do dumb stuff, like start a new scheduled recording on the tuner I'm using to watch something, even though nothing is being recorded (or is scheduled to record) on the other tuner at the time; menus you can't move back up from (even if you're several screens down, if you need to go up one menu you frequently (but not always!) have to exit entirely and start over again, drilling back down to where you wanted to be), not being able to filter out all the myriad of channels we don't get form the listings (I've simulated this by setting up a "favourites" list containing only those channels we get, but the way the interface is setup managing this when a few channels change often means I have to remove the favourites list and start over again), and ugly, ugly on-screen graphics (crappy fonts with no smoothing, no built-in upscaling for SD channels, so the entire UI changes to a more compressed version to fit within 480p, etc.). I could probably go on all day. I believe they have better boxes available now, but as I had to buy this one, I don't see it as worthwhile to "upgrade" to another non-TiVo box that is probably equally crappy.

Yaz

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Obfuscant]

When the government put out regulations where companies couldn't use lead-based solder in consumer electronics products anymore (it's still widely available for private purchase), all electronic devices began suffering significantly shorter operational life.

We should note that the RoHS (pronounced "roe-hass") regulations do not apply in the US, but they're a major hassle in the EU. And yes, the lead-free solder is a real pain in the ass to use and leads to a lot of junction failures. A local community college even offers a special class on how to solder under RoHS.

On the upside, you can pick up a lot of "failed" commercial products and with a quick re-solder with real solder you can bring them back to life cheap.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[Anonymous Coward]

We've revived many a printer (newer hp laserjets like the 1320 for example) this way. You remove the controller card and bake it in the oven for a few minutes. Once re-installed, they work like new.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[mrchaotica]

They are prohibited by FCC mandate from encrypting over the air channels

Nope.

Comcast is a better TV provider than Time Warner Cable, and that's saying something. Comcast uses the copy protect flag more sparingly, and offers more Clear QAM channels.

Also, nope. In my area, Comcast started encrypting everything, including over the air channels, over a year ago.

Time Warner Cable is objectively the worst cable provider

LOL, you poor, naive fool. You only think that because you haven't experienced the Hell that is Comcast "customer service." I've filed multiple BBB complaints. I once almost got arrested by the sheriff's deputy Comcast hires to guard their office from irate customers -- that's how bad they are!

Comcast is so bad that I've even resorted to lobbying local politicians to try to kick them out of my city.

If you see a violation of this you can report it to the FCC and they'll get in big trouble.

I tried. In my case, Comcast started encrypting (some of the) OTA channels weeks before sending the notice required by Title 47 Section 76.630 (a)(1)(v) (look it up!). I filed a complaint with the FCC, and heard nothing whatsofuckingever.

The FCC is in Comcast's pocket.

Re:They tried to raise prices 20% unnanounced

[macromorgan]

It looks like the rules were changed last year, so what I said should be considered wrong. And boy does that suck.

Re:No surprise here

[MightyMartian]

Yes, but their "solution" seems to be lobby Congress to preserve their sixty year old business model, not actually innovate.

The Internet Has Better Porn

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Which is reason enough to ditch cable TV.

Re:No surprise here

[gstoddart]

Yes, but their "solution" seems to be lobby Congress to preserve their sixty year old business model, not actually innovate.

They didn't get where they are by innovating.

They got there by lobbying Congress in the first place.

Perfect timing

[Nemosoft Unv.]

I just got off the phone ending my cable subscription when I saw this post. Perfect timing :)

The reason is different, though. While I am not a customer of Time Warmer (different country), I realised that I wasn't needing it anymore. Or more precisely: there's nothing of interest on it for me. I watch perhaps 3 hour a month; the few things I want to see (mostly news, a few background programs) I can watch on free-to-air. So I'm saving about $20 a month now, which I might use for a cinema ticket or so.

I'm sure I'm not the only one... Perhaps there's more to cable-cutting than just rising cost.

I welcome the Death Spiral

[Moof123]

I am rooting for a death spiral. There are so many cable channels that would die a very quick death in any sort of ala carte system where they actually had to compete. The system has been cable system has been setup to extract maximum dollars, while providing very low quality (maximizing profit). I'd much rather see an ala carte system with a few very good premium channels, along with some scrappy quirky channel, and let the invisible hand slap down the rest. I want to be able to get HBO without ESPN, QVC, TLC,CNN, Fox News, etc. Get it down to a handful of good channels that i pick out for $20 a month and I might sign back up.

For now I watch a few things on Hulu and Netflix, and buy dozen or so DVD's a year. I am pretty happy with what I get for the money, and I am very glad that ESPN doesn't get one red cent from me.

Re:Internet alone is more expensive than Internet+

[i kan reed]

Which just makes me so glad that I don't sit on my ass watching other people exercise for entertainment.

I think the media companies might be too stupid

[Nelson]

We had a baby in 2010, cut the cord because we didn't want to contaminate him will all the bullshit. Sports is the only thing we remotely miss..

This is very easy to stop if they want, cut out the reality shit, produce quality content. Make the news news again with a bit less opinion. And by quality content, I'd say figuring out Law and Order and CSI and then making n versions of those shows in different cities probably isn't good enough. No more American Idol type crap. Like real quality entertainment, like dramas and comedies. I'd gladly pay for a news channel and 5 to 10 channels with good quality stuff on it.

That takes money, takes risk and takes some intelligence to try to suss out the good from the bad. Thus I predict it won't happen, not from the current batch of media and distribution companies. They're too fat and lazy and used to just cashing checks.

Re:No cable, no problem

[ArcadeMan]

1. Netflix costs more than The Pirate Bay: true
2. Netflix has a lower selection than The Pirate Bay: true, including and especially the latest releases and obscure titles (if they're still seeded)
3. Netflix has less usability than The Pirate Bay: false*

* Netflix is just plain easier. I can sit down in front of the TV, start my AppleTV, navigate to something I want to watch, click play.

To do the same thing with The Pirate Bay, I'd have to sit at my computer, search their website, filter out all the weird containers like DivX and MKV, try to find a non-HD file that would take multiple hours to download, make sure the MP4 version I choose has subtitles and will play on my AppleTV, download the file, wait for at least 30 to 60 minutes for the download, add to my iTunes library and then finally watch the movie on my TV. That's nowhere near as convenient as Netflix.

Why the surprise?

[XB-70]

When a product sucks, people stop buying it.