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Streaming TV Sites Now Have More Subscribers Than Cable TV (axios.com)

Nielsen reported this week that millennials "spend about 27% less time watching traditional TV than viewers over the age of 35," possibly threatening the dominance of cable TV. An anonymous reader quotes Axios: Streaming service subscribers (free or paid) increased again (68% in 2016 vs. 63% in 2014) and have caught up with the percentage of paid TV service providers (67%) for the first time ever, according to the Consumer Technology Association's new study, The Changing Landscape for Video and Content. The rise of streaming services represents a shift in consumption habits towards cord-cutting, primarily amongst millennials.
Some other trends are impossible to ignore. 2016 also saw a saw dramatic drops in the use of physical disks -- from 41% in 2015 to just 28% -- as well as another big drop in the use of antennas, from 18% to just 10%.

34 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. but when..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    will the traditional cable and satellite companies 'see the light'?

    fine print... term contracts or 'bundles' for the 'best' pricing.. higher prices for long-term customers than for new ones... bogus below-the-line 'fees'.. high hardware rental costs.. rate hikes constantly that defy logic and outpace inflation several times over... encrypted basic channels no clearqam.. shitty customer service... and even worse billing policies and practices.

    fix all that and you might stop bleeding subscribers.

    1. Re:but when..... by ls671 · · Score: 1

      will the traditional cable and satellite companies 'see the light'?

      Sure, they are already investing in streaming sites to close the loop.

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    2. Re:but when..... by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      There was an attempt in Canada by cable providers to start a streaming service called 'Shomi'. That lasted around a year and they decided there wasn't enough money to be made from it and they closed it down.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    3. Re:but when..... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      CraveTV is still there, though.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    4. Re: but when..... by thundercattt · · Score: 1

      Don't forget, randomly changing your package without telling you. Removing channels (usually the ones you actually watch) putting them in a higher package.

    5. Re:but when..... by Mandrel · · Score: 1

      I can understand why a streaming service couldn't make money. Streaming is moving the power away from distributors and towards program creators. Even Netflix has realised their vulnerability by getting so heavily into originals.

    6. Re: but when..... by corychristison · · Score: 1

      Shomi was solely from Shaw Communications.

      What they realized is they can make more money licensing their few shows to the competition (CraveTV, owned by Bell), without the overhead of having to run a internet based streaming media service.

      Shaw now advertises the CraveTV service to their customers. I'm guessing they are getting paid for that, too.

      Bell is much, much bigger than Shaw.

    7. Re: but when..... by corychristison · · Score: 1

      I lied... Shomi was owned by Shaw and Rogers. But my point still stands: Bell is still much, much bigger than the two of them combined.

  2. Re:Doesn't make sense by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have cable internet, but no cable TV. Also, for every one cable subscription, there may be multiple streaming subscriptions.

    --
    Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
  3. Check the revenue, not head count by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Adding up subscribers to free streaming channels and comparing it to cable channels subscribers is not correct. All cable subscribers are paid subscribers. They get counted once. The same guy who creates an user id in 10 streaming channels is counted as 10 subscribers. There is only one metric. Total revenue.

    Add up all the cable tv subscription fees and ad revenue from all the tv channels. Add up all the subscription fees and ad revenue of streaming channels. Are they within even an order of magnitude?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Check the revenue, not head count by justthinkit · · Score: 1

      Or check the lack of revenue. Like the people going to the library for their "disks". If paid services were more reasonably priced, less people would go the library route. Yesterday on my way to work I passed a library. 15 minutes before opening there were 20 people outside -- and more than one demographic. These aren't streamers, or cable, watchers.

      --
      I come here for the love
    2. Re:Check the revenue, not head count by psmoot · · Score: 1

      Adding up subscribers to free streaming channels and comparing it to cable channels subscribers is not correct. All cable subscribers are paid subscribers. They get counted once. The same guy who creates an user id in 10 streaming channels is counted as 10 subscribers.

      Huh, where did you find that? TFA talks about percentage of subscribers, not percentage of subscriptions, and doesn't go into any more detail. Do you have better information? For studies like this, the devil is in the details.

      Regarding revenue, you have a point. Money talks, bull$**t walks. But if the trend is towards only having streaming subscriptions, that's kinda important for the cable operators to know. That's exactly what we saw in music. CDs used to be huge business, song downloads started killing that, now streaming music seems to be the popular choice. Music industry revenue got crushed in the process because. I don't know about industry profit, which is what the businesses really care about.

    3. Re:Check the revenue, not head count by silverhalide · · Score: 1

      The totals are not important, it's the trajectory. Streaming services are increasing in all metrics and have been for long enough now that it's a concrete trend. In some of those metrics, streaming is starting to pass cable. Cable is stagnant or decreasing on all metrics, and is only artificially supported by internet services.

      That's the news here.

      You can cherry-pick a metric and make cable tv look more profitable than streaming right now, but that doesn't change the fact that sometime in the near future, the majority of TV content will be consumed via streaming.

      Broadcast/Cable TV is dead, and is just in a 10-20 year death throes period.

    4. Re:Check the revenue, not head count by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Nielsen are being tricky buggers because they are hiding a statistic. That being how much viewing time has been lost to computer gaming and how that is spreading among a much wider age group. Reality is it TV vs Cable vs Streaming vs Gaming. All take time, all occur at similar times and all compete for the end users time. The one that is really taking over is Gaming. Losers are first and foremost cable (paying to watch commercials), commercial filled public transmissions, commercial less streaming services (streaming gains by taking from cable and public broadcast, so it's losses to gaming are less than it's gains).

      Interactive content is dominating more and more.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  4. Typo in the summary. by ls671 · · Score: 1

    There is a typo in TFS:

    2016 also saw a saw dramatic drops in the use of physical disks.

    It should read:
    "2016 also saw a saw saw dramatic drops in the use of physical disks." Like in "I see a saw sawing" since a saw was apparently used.

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  5. channeling the internet by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    with the end of net neutrality, the internet will become a set of bundled channels like cable. The only difference is going to be it's now asyncronous transmission.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  6. Regarding millennial habits during commercials by ahbond · · Score: 2

    The millennials are like, "We don't care if you show ads, it just gives us more time to check Facebook, and lets the content be free". The advertisers are like, "F*&%^#".

  7. That's why people are moving to streaming services by Solandri · · Score: 2

    Because they're tired of paying $80/mo for cable because it's the only way to get a couple dozen channels they want, but the cheapest bundle that includes those channels comes with hundreds of other channels they're not interested in. Whereas the streaming services offer more granular selection which lets you pick and choose those channels you want for $30/mo, because they're not bundled with a bunch of expensive sports channels you never watch.

    So revenue is a bad metric to use too. The best metric would be Nielsen ratings based on viewing source - number of individual eyeballs watching a particular show via OTA, broadcast cable, vs. streaming. And even then cable has an unfair advantage because most cable ISPs offer a discount if you bundle Internet + TV service.

  8. Re:Cable's Dead by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

    I agree - they are committing suicide by adding 200 useless channels in packages to people interested in about 5 channels and then charge outrageous prices for it.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  9. Re:Doesn't make sense by grub · · Score: 1

    You can get cable internet without subscribing to cable TV in many/most areas.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  10. Physical Media by djinn6 · · Score: 1

    I don't understand people who buy them. You not only pay more for the discs, you buy shelves to put them on, rent a bigger apartment for the shelves, pack more boxes when you move, and spend more time looking for that one disc with the movie you want to watch.

  11. Wrong by s.petry · · Score: 1

    I happen to pay for CRTV, but also donate through various means to certain people that provide free videos on Youtube. Those people are not monetized like TV, so you can't count revenue. I can count several dozen people with 600,000+ thousand subscribers who don't get monetized for most of their work.

    Revenue is a horrible way to determine who's watching, view count is much more accurate. CNN makes more money than Joe Rogan, but Joe has more viewers on any given show. Most cable news (CNN/MSNBC) shows have a viewership of around 500,000, which in a population of 320 million is laughable. Again, compared to Joe Rogan who is not syndicated with his Podcast (Joe Rogan Experience) or even on TV, usually has over 600K views of his show.

    Before you say "but partial watches" most people watching TV do exactly the same thing. Generally people do other things while the News is on.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  12. What about news? by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    I suspect less people are watching broadcast news.

    I think more people are getting their news from twitter, and youtube, and other internet sources.

    MSM ratings, and credibility are tanking; as I understand it.

  13. Not just millennials by TimHunter · · Score: 2

    My wife & I are >60 and watch Netflix and Amazon exclusively. Neither of us can bear watching any TV program with commercials.

    1. Re:Not just millennials by jetten · · Score: 1

      My wife & I are >60 and watch Netflix and Amazon exclusively. Neither of us can bear watching any TV program with commercials.

      This is why I dropped cable/dish. I briefly tried DirecTV Now but saw they had commercials and canceled after the first month. Commercials are definitely part of the problem.

  14. Some already do by BLToday · · Score: 1

    Cox has a one year 50Mbps and Contour package for $99 after taxes. You can stream all of the channels in your package on the iOS app. My wife actually watches less on the TV now (compare to our previous OTA setup) and just stream the live channels on her iPad. The app is much better than the cable box. It's faster, easier to use and only shows the channels you subscribed.

  15. Re: Happy Sunday by thundercattt · · Score: 1

    Agreed, I got my Magnum P.I streaming. Sorry, more exciting of a program to watch over Game of Thrones or other rubbish like Breaking Bad.

  16. Die, traditional TV, die by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I haven't had cable, satellite or antenna for a decade now, and there is no way in hell I would go back to traditional TV. While I object to commercials, I object even more strenuously to artificial scarcity. I want all content available everywhere, all the time, at reasonable prices. As long as content owners refuse to comply, piracy will thrive. As for live events, they are vastly overrated - a few hours old recording is just as good, most of the time. I hope that traditional TV will pass away ASAP.

    1. Re:Die, traditional TV, die by Mandrel · · Score: 2

      Antenna has the advantage of both being free and recordable. Sure, you can't immediately get what you want, but it's easy to build up a never-exhausted queue of good stuff to watch when you're in the mood.

    2. Re:Die, traditional TV, die by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      >but it's easy to build up a never-exhausted queue of good stuff to watch when you're in the mood.

      I don't know about that - I've built what I consider to be a fairly large collection of basically every movie or television show I've enjoyed in the last 30 years or so (since I started caring at all about what I watched).

      You know what? I find I'm almost always more willing to spend a lot of time hunting for something new than to spend a little time to select something I already have.

      Most of the stuff I have falls into two categories - good enough I remember it and bad enough I don't. Either way, it's unusual that I want to watch it again. I still enjoy the option, though.

  17. Re:That's why people are moving to streaming servi by bigfinger76 · · Score: 1

    That completely depends, now doesn't it?

  18. But cable prices increase each year by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    You'd think the cable monopolies would see this, but they don't.

  19. Re:Doesn't make sense by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

    I turned off my TV cable but kept my Internet cable. So technically I had "cable" but don't have "cable TV". I've recently switched over to City Fiber so I don't have Cable at all. I do have gig up and down for $50 a month so there is that :)

    [John]

    --
    Shit better not happen!
  20. Re:That's why people are moving to streaming servi by Brulath · · Score: 1

    Because they're tired of paying $80/mo for cable because it's the only way to get a couple dozen channels they want, but the cheapest bundle that includes those channels comes with hundreds of other channels they're not interested in. Whereas the streaming services offer more granular selection which lets you pick and choose those channels you want for $30/mo, because they're not bundled with a bunch of expensive sports channels you never watch.

    Random story which may elucidate why this is wrong:

    I played World of Warcraft back in the classic days, and used to get pretty miffed when I saw +Spell Damage on a piece of armour instead of +Frost Damage; after all, why waste precious stat points on all those elements my frost mage wasn't going to use? Bollocks to that +33 Spell Damage item, it should ditch the other elements and become a +40 Frost Damage one.

    My view was a bit naive, I'll admit. The game was balanced around the amount of bonus damage the existing armour provided; if it were altered to give me an advantage, which seemed possible (+single element damage seemed to use fewer item stat points than +all element damage), then they'd have to rebalance everything around that; probably by lowering the base damage of my character, which would suck.

    So while you see this bundle which has Awesome Channel + 30 other channels you don't give a hoot about, the cable company is aware. It's bundling those for convenience on their behalf. If they removed the 29 channels you don't watch they wouldn't reduce the price, because it still costs them the same to deliver those channels that you do watch as it did previously. The others are sort of a bonus.

    It's a bit weird, and easy to feel like you should be able to optimise and pick just the bit you want to get ahead, but it seems likely that the removal of channels from a pack wouldn't affect the price at all, because you're only paying for what you use - you're just lumped into a group with others who pay for the [different] parts that they use.