Slashdot Mirror
Cord-Cutting Spikes Fivefold In Cable TV's Worst Quarter Ever (fastcompany.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from Fast Company: Cable's day of reckoning has come. With all the major cable and satellite companies having reported their quarterly numbers, analyst firm MoffettNathanson put together a new cord-cutting report, and things are bad. Pay-TV providers lost an estimated 762,000 pay-TV subscribers over the first three months of this year -- five times more than they lost during the same period last year. To make matters worse, Q1 has historically been a strong season for pay TV.
Most people hate their cable company. But they stick with it for ESPN.
To a large extent, the current exodus from Cable is really an exodus from ESPN. Why the sudden shift? ESPN became political. Most hardcore watchers of professional sports are conservative (something like a 65/35 split), so ESPNs decision to hit progressive talking points hard at every opportunity, fire commenters for offending progressives, and so on, was the sort of bone-headed decision only an MBA could make.
The conservative blog comment section and message boards I read have been growing in anger over this for more than a year now, to the point now I see a constant stream of "you know what, I stopped watching $SPORT and I found I didn't miss it. I went and threw the ball with my kid instead - should have been doing that more all along. Goodbye ESPN!"
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm not sure if I agree that it's all down to ESPN politics but I will agree that it could be a good percentage of the cause. I'm not much of a sport watcher except for local games so I don't know that demographic that well.
I haven't bought cable in 10 years because I don't like having to schedule my time around shows or pay for a DVR, and the main reason is commercials. When I travel for work and alone I hardly ever turn on the TV unless there is some breaking news or something that could directly effect me.
I did buy a nice Roko TV on Amazon for a steal and paid for Netflix. It's perfect for when I need some down time on the couch. One tenth the cost of cable and I can retire it when I wish. I have Amazon Prime too for the shipping and Kindle services so there is all that content too.
You're spot on with the last remark, get out and do something with the people you love. You're not going to be on your death bed saying I wish I could hang on for the next season of Doctor Who. (Okay, I might say that.) But really, live your life, not some writer's idea of one.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
The killer difference between Netflix and Comcast/DirecTV/Dish Network (the only three I can get at my house) is honest advertising and billing. With Netflix, the price advertised is what you pay, end of story. With the others, the price advertised is a fancy and you have to check your bill carefully every month because they start playing games and introducing fees and package changes. And if you're not willing to call up sales and customer retention departments and chew out some hapless entry level representative every six months, they will keep jacking prices until you're paying $180 per month for something that said "$30 per month" on the original sales brochure.