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Cord-Cutters Drive Cable TV Subscribers to a 17-Year Low (houstonchronicle.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post:
On Wednesday, AT&T told regulators that it expects to finish the quarter with about 90,000 fewer TV subscribers than it began with. AT&T blamed a number of issues, including hurricane damage to infrastructure, rising credit standards and competition from rivals. The report also shows AT&T lost more traditional TV customers than it gained back through its online video app, DirecTV Now. And analysts are suggesting that that's evidence that cord-cutting is the main culprit... "DirecTV, like all of its cable peers, is suffering from the ravages of cord-cutting," said industry analyst Craig Moffett in a research note this week. Moffett added that while nobody expected AT&T's pay-TV numbers to look good, hardly anyone could have predicted they would look "this bad."
The outlook doesn't look much healthier for the rest of the television industry. Over the past year, cable and satellite firms have collectively lost nearly 3 million customers, according to estimates by market analysts at SNL Kagan and New Street Research. The number of households with traditional TV service is hovering at about the level it was in 2000, according to New Street's Jonathan Chaplin, in a study last week. Other analysts predict that, after factoring in AT&T's newly disclosed losses, the industry will have lost 1 million traditional TV subscribers by the end of this quarter.
The outlook doesn't look much healthier for the rest of the television industry. Over the past year, cable and satellite firms have collectively lost nearly 3 million customers, according to estimates by market analysts at SNL Kagan and New Street Research. The number of households with traditional TV service is hovering at about the level it was in 2000, according to New Street's Jonathan Chaplin, in a study last week. Other analysts predict that, after factoring in AT&T's newly disclosed losses, the industry will have lost 1 million traditional TV subscribers by the end of this quarter.
last bill was 41% over last year's same month, same service, same channels. as i said, last bill.
given that media can be delivered and consumed, without change in quality or convenience, through generalized methods, like the internet, specialized ways of delivery and consumption will be obsolete.
some specialized ways, like movie theaters, may last a bit longer because they enable consumption experience not yet available through generalized methods .
Cable fees just as high as they ever were... where's the incentive to stay with cable?
Well, I dunno how things are there in the US, but if it's anything like Brazil (and I think it is), people should be celebrating on the streets.
Cable TV companies are oligopolies, some of the biggest companies in the country, and they abused their position in every way possible. Price gouging, exploiting legal loopholes for shady tie-ins, bundling sales, chopping up consumer rights in every way possible, offering the worst costumer service imaginable, using aggressive marketing tactics and whatnot.
And they constantly keep trying to change the rules and force the costumers to either pay more, or receive less, on lame justifications that they don't have enough money to upgrade their infrastructure, all the while posting record profits every year.
A whole set of consumer laws in recent years were passed because of them, including anti spam/telemarketing call laws, the entire net neutrality debacle, a bunch of stuff regarding how call centers should work to attend their costumers, etc etc.
Every year they come up to threaten yet another restringent rule that will kill connection for a significant portion of their users. As if they could re-write the contracts we agreed upon when signing up for the service.
The more market share for cable TV shrinks, the better for everyone as I see it. It'll be better for people who likes their cable, as the companies will have to fight to keep them and give them better service, and more options for us who never cared about cable in the first place.
I went over a decade having to pay for cable just because there was some shady bundling crap that made it cheaper to pay for the entire package rather than paying for Internet alone. The majority of the country are still stuck on this deal because they have no other options. Like I said, oligopolies. They will price fix, they will close deals behind curtains to dominate certain areas, they will exploit people as much as they can.
Fortunately, I moved to a place where there's fiber Internet available... jumped at the opportunity as fast as I could, it's like I'm finally getting what I pay for. No more unexplained outages, a fair working connection for the price I pay (which is lower than if I had to pay for the cable TV/Internet bundle), good costumer service, and no lies on speed, throttling practices and data caps.
Get in touch with them - why? For commiseration? It's not as if the newspaper and publishing industries have figured out a solution either.
#DeleteChrome
Start offering services a la carte, at a reasonable price, and many of us might consider signing up again. Persist in your ridiculous extortions tactics, whereby to watch a couple of channels that people are interested in they have to pay for dozens that only carry junk, and expect the rate of defections to increase. Your call.
Cable is convenient!
You can watch it on the box we approve, at the time we set, on the channel we set, at the resolution we set, on the box you pay to rent from us.
Don't like it at that time, pay to record it, don't forget you pay to record the commercials too.
Don't watch it in time, don't worry, rent the episode from us!
Don't like the content in SD? Pay more for HD, with HD commercials!
Don't like the channel, pay for the same channel, in HD, timeshifted, with timeshifted commercials!
100 Channels of crap
100 Channels of crap in HD!
100 Channels of timeshifted crap!
100 channels of timeshifted HD crap!
10 Channels of sports, but what you want to watch is blacked out!
10 Channels of radio, playing crap, and with commercials!
10 Channels of shopping crap!
Don't forget, we have tons of C-F grade movies, with lots of commercials, with the swearing cut out, and did we mention commercials?
We rotate in 1-5 A-B grade movies, but they are the same movies, the C-F grade movies get constantly added! You can watch Overboard! as many times as you can stomach!
All for a small monthly fee!
-Cable box rental fee
-Cable fee
-Fee payment fee
-FCC Fee
-FCC Surcharge
-FCC Levy
-FCC Premium
-Local Content Fee
-Local Content Improvement Fee Premium
Ditch netflix and their cheap boxes and sticks! Your good old clunky power-hungry cable box is where it's at!
The cable companies are regulated utilities, granted monopoly in the areas they operation. They pushed through rate increase after rate increase, bundled useless channels, had abysmal customer service and all the arrogant entitlement attitude that comes with being a monopoly.
All their infrastructure has already been paid for thanks to friendly regulators and relentless rate increases. They could have dropped their prices and made it impossible for the wireless companies to compete. They could have improved customer service. But no. They believed they are entitled to cash delivered to their coffers in fire hoses. They believed they had the customers by their balls and wanted to how hard the customers will scream and how hard they can squeeze.
They can still fight back. Their infrastructure has been paid for, and it has much larger bandwidths than cell towers. They can compete if they wanted to compete.
But they don't want to compete. Looks like.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I am not a sports fan. I pay a regional sports fee. Why? I get over 200 channels. Watch, tops, a couple dozen. Why pay for the others? Ala carte is suppressed by the cable and satellite providers, but it is how to save their industry and negotiate lower fees to the source owners. Why license CNN if only 5% view CNN? The single purpose channels are also a losing proposition. And then there are the nickel and dime fees, extra receiver, pay $7.99 a month. DVR ability, pay per month, HD pay per month, 4K WOW pay per month. Formerly you'd subscribe to a movie package and the next would cost less, then less for the third, etc. Now they not only cost more per package than Netflix and way more than Amazon (with Prime Video as a perk)... Video on demand? A great concept, except it also comes with commercials you can't fast forward through. And you're paying for it already. I used to get every channel except sports and it cost about $90 a month. Now my basic "total choice that is far from total" costs that, and it more than doubles with all the added fees. Add that to "buying" a DVR/Receiver that you are really leasing monthly after paying them more than the cost of manufacture for a device locked to their system... Wow. If they started reducing fees and negotiating cheaper costs, like put networks in a selectable package and see how fast the network stations dropped their ask for presence. Yes, You pay for the networks through higher fees, and the networks still get to count you for advertising rates. Everyone is asking a bit too much and the broadcast model is going to collapse. I really want to eliminate the high cost of carriage of sports channels etc. Watch their ad rates drop as people are no longer counted as potential viewers. Then watch as the cable providers demand cheaper fees. And then watch as they fail to pass them on and still fail.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Most newspapers have transitioned into a hybrid online/paper model. The cable TV model can follow. They have the rights to shows in the area. But they don't have any local streaming setup. There are piles of options they refuse to even consider, sounds like the newspapers, right after subscriptions flatlined and before the cliff.
Learn to love Alaska
I like being able to watch TV on my own schedule. Not having to miss out on my preferred shows due to conflicting schedules regarding things more important or time sensitive than relaxing.
yah. i am. haven't watched a single NFL game all season and that comes from someone who has watched the NFL constantly for decades. i don't even consider myself to be extremely patriotic. it's not about the flag. to me the issue is deeper. its thugs protesting that when they break the law, they shouldn't be punished. i am not ok with supporting people who go out of their way to support people who break the law. As a white person have *never* had a positive interaction with law enforcement. I've been pulled over multiple times for "speeding" when i wasn't speeding (i'm not a speeder as evidenced by the fact i've had never had speeding ticket). these were all police mistakes or phishing expeditions. However, i remained honest and respectful in the face of false accusations, and the issues were resolved. If you run from the police, attack the police, or otherwise don't act as requested you are on shaky ground. it's not racism. it's stupidity and i don't support it.
Scott
Offended might be the wrong word. What's actually happening is far worse ( for the NFL ).
Let me ask you this: Why do people cheer for specific teams? Rosters change, coaches come and go, management and owners change. Hell, you can't even rely on a team to stay in the same city. When you come right down to it, people are fans of nothing more than a name. So how does that work? How does slavish devotion to a name result in very serious amounts of cash being extracted from fans?
Tribalism. Humanity is, at it's core, tribal. Fans view these teams as "their tribe", which enables all the other behaviors that follow. And as long as that reality is maintained, the cash will continue to flow.
Enter the protests; the protesting players are no longer a part of the tribe. They are shattering that reality. Without realizing it, fans are waking up to the fact that it's just a team name and one they can live without.
So offended is probably the wrong word. If you offend a friend, you can apologize and everything is fine. The NFL protests, however, are creating a dynamic where the fans can't go back to being in the same tribe as their team's players. Even if the players profusely apologize ( which I doubt, given their recent remarks ), the fans will always have doubts, and those doubts will translate into a very serious loss of revenue.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!