Slashdot Mirror
Continued Cord Cutting Hits the Pay TV Business Hard
An anonymous reader writes: Cord cutting is not a new concern for the pay TV business but a recent massive sell-off in media stocks has many in the industry worried. Cable, satellite and TV companies suffered their worst-ever quarterly subscriber declines losing more than half a million accounts, sending stocks tumbling. Researchers say this may be the beginning of the end for the pay TV business. According to analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson: "A year ago, the Pay TV sector was shrinking at an annual rate of 0.1 percent. A year later, the rate at which the Pay TV sector is declining has quickened to 0.7 percent year-over-year. That may not seem like a mass exodus, but it is a big change in a short period of time. And the rate of decline is still accelerating."
If they spent their time keeping subscribers happier rather than cannibalizing subscribers of other types of service they wouldn't be losing so much.
The NUMBER ONE difference in cost between services comes from moving from one to another.
If my monthly bill didn't slowly creep up after a couple of years, I wouldn't be forced to move to something else. Instead of whoring out for "new bundles", just offer a lower price. 99% of the people moving service don't want to or have to because of coverage, but do because they can save $60 a month with a new "introductory" bundle somewhere else.
Also there is this strange resistance to allowing users to pick what they want to watch and pay for only that. Believe it or not, some people don't want four channels of QVC, and they'd rather pay the $8 for the weather channel (or whatever) instead of $22 for a bunch of shit along with the weather channel.
Who'd have thought that treating your customers like scumbags and cash cows might eventually cause them to leave?
This is my surprised face.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
That's okay. I've looked at my usage and I could get away with DSL speeds or even with cellular if I absolutely had to. Plus Google Fiber will probably end up in my city within the next year or two an I'm planning on getting rid of my cable provider altogether.
Besides, if the recent FCC decision to regulate Internet providers like they regulated telephone companies to fight against the ISPs' attempts to extort fees from content providers sticks, as a common-carrier designation the cable companies might find themselves required to provide Internet access even if that's the only service the customer wants.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
As someone who literally hasn't had a TV (in the traditional sense) in their house for 20 years, I'm always shocked at the sheer amount of advertising whenever I'm on business travel and the hotel internet isn't fast enough for netflix. Even if it's a show I'm intensely interested in, I'd much rather wait for it to come out on DVD or arrive on netflix than suffer through all the advertising. A bit at the top and bottom of each hour, sure, but ~5 minutes of commercials every ~5 minutes? How do "normal" people stand for that?
You've fallen into the trap. The real struggle should be corporate control of the country versus control by the people, but the corporations have convinced too many people that there's a left vs right fight going on, or a liberal versus conservative struggle. It is distracting you from the real enemy. If you think Disney or Comcast are "liberal" then you have drunk their lemonade. Corporations are not political, they are instead impersonal hive minds. They follow the winds of change without any loyalty to any political brand except for money. American has been deluded into thinking that if they're anti-abortion that they must always be anti-tax at the same time, and if they're pro-gay-rights that they must automatically be pro-union. It's stupid, there area million different political stances that any voter could have and yet we're being fooled into thinking that there are only two: us versus them.
Don't hate Disney because they have different political views than your tribe has, but hate them because they're replacing "we the people" with "we the stockholders".
Typically we now see 20 minutes of ads for every 40 minutes of program. So, 1/3 of the time is commercials. Since commercials suck, It's little wonder that cable TV is shrinking its customer base. You can get the same crap, with fewer channels, over the air with the same 20 minutes of commercials per hour, and plenty of digital sub-channels showing old programs. Why not cut the cord when the cord keeps getting more expensive and the quality is not any better?
Hmm, you haven't noticed the corrosive right in the country which despises anyone who doesn't share their opinions?
Who cares? The lack of spectator sports on Netflix is a feature, not a bug.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Besides - consumers today change over from watching TV at decided times to use Video on Demand like Netflix and YouTube.
In many cases they can at the same time avoid the annoying ads injected into the TV programs that are on broadcast. On the web - well, there you have adblock to clean up the crap.
We are in the middle of a media transition phase where people changes their habits to do cherry picking and only pay for what they want to see.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"sports fee" of $6 per month, No sports channels...don't do sports on tv $72 per year ? SNIP
It has nothing to do with "liberal" or "conservative". It's that they're all family. They all share the last name, "Inc.".
Seriously, what idiot thinks corporations give a crap about liberal or conservative? If anyone was paying attention to the Republican debate, Donald Trump (of all people) broke it down for them. He gives money to everyone. He explained, on national TV, that he buys politicians as a matter of course. Left, right and center they take his money and are available when he needs something. And people still think I'm extreme when I say that this country is an oligarchy.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)