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Cable Industry Finally Fights Cord Cutting With Fewer Ads (dslreports.com)

The cable industry is slowly realizing that more advertisements and higher prices aren't the solution to cord cutting. Karl Bode writes via DSLReports: AT&T and Dish have explored offering cheaper, more flexible streaming alternatives (DirecTV Now and Sling TV, respectively), both understanding that getting out ahead of the cord cutting trend is the right play, even if the net result is making less money from traditional television. And on the broadcasting front, several companies this month made it clear they'll be reducing the ad loads on their programming, since charging users a subscription fee and socking them with endless ads is becoming a dated concept in the cord cutting era. Fox, for example, told the Wall Street Journal this week that the company would be reducing TV ad time in its content to two minutes an hour by 2020. Comcast NBC Universal says it's also following suit, having cut advertising time in its own shows by 10%, and reduced the overall number of advertising during commercial breaks by 20%. Given there's 83 million households still subscribing to traditional cable TV, many cable executives are under the false impression they can keep doubling down on bad ideas without the check coming due. But the data indicates this head in the sand approach simply isn't sustainable. Pay TV providers saw a reduction of more than 500,000 traditional pay TV customers during the fourth quarter, a decline of 3.4% total pay TV customers from the year before. That 3.4% decline was up from the 2% rate during in the fourth quarter of 2016 and a 1% rate of decline one year before that.

3 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Fuck them all by Crypto+Gnome · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The entire advertising industry and everyone who depends on them have shown themselves to be unethical , and morally bankrupt. They ALL deseeve to die in a nuclear accident.

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    Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
  2. Re:What I want... by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I want a 30 channel subscription that allows me to select all 30 stations from a lineup on a 30 day interval.

    Charter is piloting a "Pick 20" a la carte package in my area. A quick scan of the available channels to choose from gave me the impression it didn't completely suck, too, which was a bit of a surprise. I got the mailing because I buy internet but not TV. Haven't in years and years. Still didn't, even with options. The price was definitely much lower than their usual. +$20 instead of +$40 on top of Internet.

    Now if I gave a damn about commercial television, maybe...

  3. Re:Just cut the cord myself by Firethorn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in a fairly rural area and have about 4 non-religious stations within reach. Consider that OTA stations are all advertising supported as well.

    I'd argue that it's just the opposite: I have so little free time that $8/month for a Netflix plan is well worth it.

    https://www.statista.com/stati...

    They say 693 seconds of advertising per hour, average, for broadcast TV. 11 minutes and 33 seconds of ads.
    That is 5 hours, 46 minutes, 30 seconds per month, assuming that you average 1 hour/day.

    Using Netflix as a plan to avoid that? $1.38/hour to avoid advertising. That's less than minimum wage. Worth it.

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    I don't read AC A human right