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Cable TV 'Failing' As a Business, Cable Industry Lobbyist Says (arstechnica.com)
According to a cable lobbyist group, cable TV is "failing" as a business due to rising programming costs and consumers switching from traditional TV subscriptions to online video streaming. "As a business, it is failing," said Matthew Polka, CEO of the American Cable Association (ACA). "It is very, very difficult for a cable operator in many cases to even break even on the cable side of the business, which is why broadband is so important, giving consumers more of a choice that we can't give them on cable [TV]." Ars Technica reports: The ACA represents about 750 small and mid-sized cable operators who serve about seven million customers throughout the US. The ACA has also been one of the primary groups fighting broadband regulations, such as net neutrality and online privacy rules, and a now-dead set-top box proposal that would have helped cable TV subscribers watch the channels they subscribe to without a rented set-top box. "The cable business isn't what it used to be because of the high costs," Polka said, pointing to the amount cable TV companies pay programmers for sports, broadcast programming via retransmission consent fees, and other programming. When asked about cord cutting, Polka said, "it's the video issue of our time as consumers learn they have choice" from services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. "It gives consumers more choice, something that they've wanted for a long time, more control from the bundle of cable linear programming," Polka said. "Our members, however, I think are very aggressive in how they are trying to provide consumers that they serve with more choice through on-demand [channels], through availability of over-the-top services, making sure that their broadband plan is fast enough to support a consumer's video habits. So, yes, it's a thing that's happening today, cord cutting, cord shaving. But as an industry, our members are well primed to be able to serve their customers with their broadband service that allows them to consume the video they want."
Always nice to read good news?
From the article (emphasis mine):
As someone with 100/60 service at home (via cable) and 1.3/384k at my lake home, both with no data caps, I can offer up the tidbit that speed is far less important than the extra revenue stream cable providers are attempting to get through bandwidth capping.
Netflix works just fine at 1.3/384k (Amazon less so) but I certainly don't need to have 100/60 service just to watch VOD while knowing I may hit my cap if I decide to download 5 or 6 concert torrents on top of my regular usage levels.
Let's dispel with the notion that cable companies know anything about what their customers want and understand all they care about is profit for their shareholders. We don't necessary need faster, we just need truly limitless, like it always has been.
So it goes. Few people want to pay for 50 channels that they won't watch delivered via outdated technology. Death is a part of life, but life goes on.
It's the same pattern as VOIP: it's redundant to have one infrastructure network for one kind of information and a different for another. The Internet is clearly more flexible than cable (at least potentially more flexible) because you can select from myriads of content providers rather than just the forced bundles of channels that oligopolies love to offer.
Cable co's should get with the times rather than play games to hold the clock back. The cable co's can rework their strategy to provide local buffering services for content providers, for example, so that the bytes of popular shows don't have to travel as far.
Table-ized A.I.
If cable companies stopped buying the expensive sport (or put it into a "sports" package and charged extra for it) then maybe they might not be loosing money on their cable operations as much as they do now.
Cord-cutters are driving up the prices for the rest of us. It's selfish and greedy, screwing the rest of us over. The studios are also losing money from the greedy pirates who just want free stuff. Cord-cutting and piracy both need to stop right now. It's shameful. If you're a cord-cutter or a pirate, you should be aware that you are a scumbag. Hope that helps.
"So we've doubled down on our broadband price gouging."
forced bundling and outlet fees we need to make it so the internet does not go the same way with per system with Nat free IPV6 and being forced to buy all kinds on line sites as part your you basic internet costs.
nobody just comes out and says their business is failing. He's up to something. Something awful enough to throw his entire industry under the bus.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Make ESPN an HBO like add on local RSN as well.
Make it like HBO and MAX. Where at times you can get a deal for HBO + MAX but you can also just get HBO or MAX.
And not add 30+ bullshit channels we know we will never watch. I haven't had cable for years because of this.
Here's a strange thing: cable companies pay for the content on their wire (retransmission fees).
Why are there ads on that wire if the subscriber is paying for the content already?
How about they start pitching a version of cable, stripped down to a few channels, each actually meaningful and with varied programming, with NO COMMERCIALS in exchange for the subscription costs... you know, like it all started out?
Hey, I said it was a crazy idea. But why is it crazy? I mean, they're mostly internet companies now anyway, so any television income could be small, and they'd be fine, as long as they cut back enough for expenses to be below income.
That proposal would be crazy, because of stockholders. The demand for increased return, increased promises, increased control, guaranteed income with increasing percentage numbers. It's what makes all US publicly traded companies turn to crap over time.
It's basically the wisdom of mutual fund managers that demand cable, and other companies act like they do. And the giant pile of investment money behind them, looking for safe, guaranteed returns, and pushing everything to serve that, and only that.
It's also why commercials suck so much too, and why so many folks like me stopped watching/subscribing to cable years ago. It really is dumbfounding to visit folks watching commercials, and see those messages celebrating the happiness of paying rent to those companies paying for airtime.
Ryan Fenton
I usually like correcting liberal mistakes but that's like trying to teach birds geometry. This is a very pleasant change of pace that everyone can get behind and enjoy as one. Harmony in hatred for cable providers! Happiness.
whats the avg daily rate for acting 5-6K a day?
and our wages aint growing to match there wages growing so you do the math idiot cable industry
and I've only had cable for three weeks! Also, I originally called to order $39.95 per month Internet access, but they talked me into adding basic cable TV for only $10 per month more. After "HD Technology Fees," taxes, other fees, and HD cable box rental, my bill is now over $90 per month. That $10 per month is damn expensive. Cable companies are doing it to themselves.
Look at what's actually on: tons of rubbish, reality shows, and two different episodes of MASH at anytime. Its not worth it.
At some point it is worth saying, either we change with the technology or we wont have a business. Businesses do need to change and adapt. This is why Apple is doing well but not so much with IPODs now, they know how to move to the next thing. Cable TV companies change your core business before you have no business!
I'd become a cable subscriber again tomorrow if they just gave up on the fucking bundling. Sell me the channels I want, and don't try to charge me for a bunch of shit that I don't want. It's the lesson that every single content provider should have learned from iTunes, for fuck's sake.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm about 35 miles outside of Seattle, and get 56 Digital OTA channels. Tell me again why I would want cable? I already have decent content with what is available for free. I was curious about CenturyLink's PrismTV service (TV over IP), but they won't offer it in my area for some reason, despite the fact I'm on their gigabit fiber connection. I can't be their TV customer if they won't let me!
The real reason the cable TV industry is failing is because they're a bunch of greedy usurious jackasses who are also collectively too incompetent to maintain adequate network service even if they actually wanted to. And they don't. And this has been common knowledge amongst consumers for decades. What's new now is that there's finally better things to spend your money on.
fucking GOOD!
I gave up cable television 7 years ago. A few years with nothing, 5 years hulu, 2 years netflix. I'm at a point where i can't stand watching regular cable. Combine the obscene amount of advertising with the inability to pick what show i want to watch and when, and mix it into 600 channels of i can't be bothered to try and wade thru all this bulls**t... and you have something I will never ever see the value in again.
Retransmission fees pay for only a portion of the cost of acquiring programming. Advertisements also pay for only a portion. Only when combined do they cover the entire cost. If there were no ads, retransmission fees would rise to make cable TV bills several times larger than they are.
Pretty much every show, every movie, might take 6 months to get it but you've got it for a week and it doesn't cost a cent.
Cut the cable, pay the bandwidth cost for the stuff you have to watch *Right Farking Now*, hit the library (or, cough, pirate's bay cough), and fuck paying $5/month to ESPN for a channel you've never watched in your life.
Every torrent client I've ever used includes configuring it to work only during specified hours
I was referring to the lack of such a setting for things other than torrent clients, such as operating system updaters. See, for example, how caps affect users of Windows.
the television side alone has a profit margin in excess of 100%, despite 'rising programming costs'. and that's just programming. services (dvr, etc) and equipment charges are ridiculously higher, while bogus below-the-line 'fees' are pure profit.
but broadband internet access? it costs pennies per megabit/second of unburdened 'big dumb pipe' to provide to customers... which then gets throttled, capped, snooped-on, dns poisoned, made asymmetric, and billed out at 10-100x+ its true cost.
Cable TV deserves to fail. Those assholes have overcharged everyone for decades because they had a monopoly on access to content. In another century, every last one of them would be tarred, feathered and run out of town only to die slowly from infection. I have no sympathy for people who gleefully exploit the general population.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
My cable company takes all content makes it 720p and compresses the shit out. They then send it out to my 1080p tv and it looks like shit. Netflix looks great. And they wonder why they lose customers? Theyhave a very simple job and They can't even do that right.
I had to take three days off of work waiting for their installer. Since I've never taken a vacation or sick day on the 24 years since I graduated from college, I'm still pissed about that. Sitting at home with no Internet access sucked. Also, I'm probably going to get a bad review next month since I took more time off than any of my coworkers did.
It must be tough to navigate network tv with your latent homosexual urges. It disgusts and titillates you in equal measure, and so you must lash out and attack any homosexuals who gave the temerity to be comfortable in their skin.
I really do feel sorry for you
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The lie of eternal growth is being seen now, the cable industry has grow so much that is too bloated and requires too much money to provide their ancient services, but they still feels entitled to get big money, maybe is time they start shifting and adapt to current people's wants or start to scale down... That is the real ending for any business that has grown too much.
>> "Our members, however, I think are very aggressive in how they are trying to provide consumers that they serve with more choice..."
No they REALLY haven't, at least here in Phoenix. Cox pretty much have a cable TV monopoly and they haven't done diddly squat, other than renaming their same tired old shit to try and fool people into thinking its some new deal.
What people REALLY want is to be able to pick and choose individual channels, and not have a cable box at all.
Cable companies have known this for years, Its perfectly technically possible, but they STILL refuse to give us what we actually want to buy. Their ongoing stupidity/arrogance is exactly what opened the door to companies like Netflix and Hulu in the first place, and they STILL haven't learned.
Cable's crumbling TV business is ENTIRELY self inflicted.
comcast is not rate shaping all but locales to 720P
Legacy cable fat cats... fueling their Charlie-sheen-esque cocaine and hooker parties used to be the norm for cable providers. Now that the wind has violently change to cutting the cord... does any provider actually admit they can't provide what the customer wants? I'm simultaneously amazed that some provider actually admitted it.. but at the same time the big data providers are working on port/protocol and deep packet inspection to throttle their users from alternative sources like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Playstation TV/Vue and other sources.
This is the Telco industry 10 to 15 years ago.. when they were happy to charge you 30+ a month for access to a phone line and more to use it for more than calling your next-door neighbor.
Old saying but applicable: You've made your bed now lie in it.
Peace.
Reality TV and bullshit program quality is the problem. People can find better quality shows online for the same price or cheaper. The learning channel is now the shit reality TV channel. Same with all of them. Provide a decent product and people will buy it. TV likes to fuck themselves though. Nevermind cancelling Firefly, fix isn't the only one. NBC had a great police procedural called Southland that they cancelled. It was perhaps the best example of that type of show is ever seen. Nope. They put some jackoff talent show instead of some other reality bullshit. Prime examples of network TV failing. Blame shareholder mentality I guess. End of rant.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
This article from January 2017 says: "Comcast Corp. reported better-than-expected financial results and added cable TV customers in the fourth quarter, culminating a strong year in which it added net video customers for the first time in a decade...In the fourth quarter, net income rose to $2.3 billion, or 95 cents a share, up from about $2 billion, or 79 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue grew 9.2% to $21 billion."
Sell a shitty product, lose money, go out of business.
In other news, the Earth is a sphere, and sugar is sweet. News at 11.
For years every time the local cable company called, I asked about a la carte packaging. They didn't have it. I didn't buy it. No sympathy.
The costs aren't rising, the producers are just being greedy.
There's a big difference between having a character who happens to be gay, than a token who is gay for the sake of being gay.
Yet another industry that tries to force a product down a consumer chain bites it. Good riddance! Television networks in general are obsolete.
He's opening up those coal mines again and should fuel your steam engine for the foreseeable future!
(yeah, now mod this into oblivion, but how could I let such a cue go unused?)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And this is why cable should have been treated as a monopoly for so many years, as they've been gouging consumers. Now they've got to compete, and don't know how. Competition is good.
Just another day in Paradise
750 cable providers with 7 million customers works out to 9,333 customers per cable company.
These are small businesses trying to get by.
They don't have the influence of the majors, even 7 million customers combined isn't anything compared to Charter, with over 30 million customers.
I can certainly understand small players being crushed, it's the American way...
BlameBillCosby.com
This is the cable industry's reward for being fixated on next quarter earnings above all else. You optimized your short term profitability in exchange for your reputation and the goodwill of your customers, you diluted your product to the point that people dont see the value in it anymore.
It is a LOT easier to live without cable teevee than you think it is.
I wonder how many is "many cases". Four?
When I can order the shows I want on DVD, add them to my media players library, and store the DVDs for safe keeping? No fussy cable contracts, no ads, and no outages outside of power and even then a few shows loaded on a laptop solves that if I'm that desperate. Pay a subscription for non stop ads with shows wrapped around them? Pffff... bite me.
And tears were shed by no one. Well, except for shareholders and CEO's.
Your sig here!
Why is this news? We've known this has been in progress for years. Like the Ice Industry and tailor industry before it, Cable is becoming obsolete because a new, more advanced form of media has superseded it. This is a pattern that repeats itself and John Schumpeter coined the term Creative Destruction to describe the process. When Netflix first came about, Blockbuster had a choice, adapt or not adapt. Blockbuster chose not to adapt and now it's part of human history along with the Ice Industry. It's all a very natural part of the process of evolution of technology and services. Cable was successful for 30 years-ish. They had a good run at it and will be remembered as such.
We'll make great pets
Nearly a decade ago when my wife got laid off we went through the bills and prioritized. The obvious like food, water and shelter were near the top. Cable TV didn't make the cut, but we were more bummed out about losing the house cleaning service. When things turned around, we brought back the house cleaning but have no real need to bring back cable TV. On vacation we have had access to cable TV again and it's done nothing to change our minds. The combination of TiVo and streaming services provides entertainment when we want it and to our taste with far less commercials. Why in the world am I going to shell out $100-130/month for a bunch of crappy reality shows, re-runs and so on? If I want a movie or series, it's probably on Netflix or Amazon, and I'd need to watch a lot to even approach what the cable used to cost.
Instead of making a "large" (if any) profit on a few, cut your rate, and perhaps you will get more subscribers? Does any business not know "econ 101"?
People that use the word "broadband" incorrectly are as retarded as the people who use the term "cloud".
Well the content providers are being super greedy so I cannot shed any tears there. And then the cable companies themselves, I mean a giant like Comcast owns it's own production. So what negotiation is there really?
So what happens when catv providers lose revenue, then stop carrying channels? Those broadcasters aren't going to have very favorable returns when that happens and maybe we'll see the retransmission horse shit disappear.
"Cable TV 'Failing' As a Business, Cable Industry Lobbyist Says"
In other news, sales of buggy whips have decreased dramatically and the Buggy Whip Lobby is demanding that Congress introduce legislation to correct this economically disastrous state of affairs.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
How is it that the cable companies don't know that the amount of advertising and commercials has become so excessive as to be intolerable.
I am shocked by the amount of advertising every time I see cable or satellite TV. How is it that anyone can justify paying for a service that is completely saturated with advertising.
It should be plain as day to any executive- why can't they switch strategies? They are killing themselves, figuratively strangling the goose from whence their profits come.
They have apparently found a way to get all those rednecks to hate cable TV by giving it the same acronym as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or ObamaCare,. . .
due to rising programming costs and consumers switching from traditional TV subscriptions to online video streaming.
Media producers overvalue their content and want too much for it. They'd probably make more selling it for less, as more people would be willing to pay.
I can't stand watching commercials any more. I rarely watch our cable. I'd get rid of it, but a combination of other family members wanting it, and the "bundling" with internet, etc means they jack the price up on my internet if I ditch cable. Go somewhere else? Yeah right, I have one choice for broadband, and that is it.
Love to ditch all the sports and other crap we don't watch too. Would be nice to reduce the contents of the guide to channels we actually watch, instead of scrolling through a sea of crap.
It's coming and you know it. Fucking SJW pussies. HATE those people.
But you are paying the Tivo recurring charge...
Two reasons people are cutting the cord. 1. Price. 2. Commercials.
Cable TV (CATV/SMATV/etc) ***IS*** BROADBAND. (usually up to 1GHz and usually with a low diplexer split frequency around 50Mhz for the return path).
Most CATV today is using QAM signaling on digital channels all over the spectrum and the STB's are using the return path. How is this not "broadband" ? Yeah, I get it you are using the "consumerized" term.
Streaming services like NetFlix are killing the DOCSIS channels because there just isn't (nor will there ever even with DOCSIS3) be enough bandwidth to stream every house a unique HD stream.
When more people "cut the cord" but keep the cable (DOCSIS), there will come a day very soon where you will pay just as much as your CATV bill for "streaming video" access.
On the bright side though, maybe all these hundreds of CRAP channels that people are normally forced to pay for will wither and die. Working in a CATV headend and seeing these shows is really depressing actually. To think some people actually PAY to sit themselves in front of this tripe all day long.
So you took off 3 days, in 24 years and you took off more vacation than any of your coworkers? What slave camp do you work in?
Perhaps being an asshole isn't good for business in the long run?
Naw, seems to work well for Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and many others.
Does "Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed" in Windows Task Scheduler ensure that the missed tasks run in order, so that the missed "turn metering off" task that had been scheduled for midnight doesn't incorrectly run after the missed "turn metering back on" task that had been scheduled for 8 AM? Microsoft's page about "Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed" makes no mention of any ordering guarantee.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/tv/how-to/a6608/build-your-own-digital-tv-antenna/
Or if you don't have an attic, somewhere nearby.
I've had cable cut for years now. Didn't miss it. (Broadcast shows weren't any better or worse.)
However when newer TVs could connect to my LAN, that made a difference.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
There's a big difference between having a character who happens to be gay, than a token who is gay for the sake of being gay.
You watch sitcoms and complain there are stereotypes?
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.