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Cord-Cutting Keeps Churning: US Pay-TV Cancelers To Hit 33 Million in 2018 (Study) (variety.com)
Millions of Americans have already scrapped traditional pay-TV service, and the exodus is expected to continue apace in 2018. From a report: This year, the number of cord-cutters in the U.S. -- consumers who have ever cancelled traditional pay-TV service and do not resubscribe -- will climb 32.8%, to 33.0 million adults, according to new estimates from research firm eMarketer. That's compared with a total of 24.9 million cord-cutters as of the end of 2017, which was up 43.6% year over year (and an upward revision from eMarketer's previous 22 million estimate). That said, even as the traditional pay-TV universe shrinks, the number of viewers accessing over-the-top, internet-delivered video services keeps growing. About 147.5 million people in the U.S. watch Netflix at least once per month, according to eMarketer's July 2018 estimates. That's followed by Amazon Prime Video (88.7 million), Hulu (55 million), HBO Now (17.1 million) and Dish's Sling TV (6.8 million).
Free live streams are everywhere and easy to find.
Do we really think the cable companies care, so long as we're still paying them for the internet access? They have a monopoly no mater how you look at it.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Sure we do -- with the money saved from not paying for cable, we can attend actual games :D
I've always disliked the term "cord-cutting", because it presumes that having a cable TV subscription is the normal default state of affairs, and that it's some weird deviance from that norm to not buy a service that you would normally not have if you didn't go out of your way to buy it.
When I first moved out on my own, and had to start paying my own utilities and such, I was really tight for cash and so decided that I didn't need to spend my very limited money just to watch TV. Fast forward a decade or two and I still don't have TV. I never have had TV, at least not since it could rightly be said that *I* did or didn't have it, rather than my parents.
I'm not a cord-cutter, because I never had a cord to cut.
How many of the tallied "cord-cutters" in these figures are like me? Especially younger people, who increasingly see TV as unnecessary, and who are increasingly strapped for cash they are unlikely to waste even starting up service for an unnecessary entertainment package when they could just as well do without.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The end of "cable TV" will be when the sports broadcasters start making deals with the over-the-top suppliers. Until that happens people will continue to pay telcos and telcos will continue to find creative bundling ways to take as much of our money as they can.
That whole industry is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
they donâ(TM)t watch live sports
We participate in live sports. We have a bunch of soccer, swim, softball, touch football and tennis leagues all over my area - and they're pretty cheap - less than the cost of one month of cable or satellite.
We get exercise, hang out, talk face to face, and the single people meet other single people. For the price of three months of Comca$t XFinity, I can buy a whole years of tennis league and two new rackets.
Now watching professional or college sports on TV is just passive entertainment.
Depends on how big your family is. But to answer your first question, No. If you have Netflix you really don't need HBO.
My whole family uses our netflix subscription. I personally subscribe to Curiosity Stream and Great Courses Plus. My daughter has a Cruncyroll subscription. My son and son in law are pretty cheap so they both get by with youtube.
If it was just me in the house there would only be GreatCourses Plus and Curiosity Stream and the PBS app. I'm not sure about Netflix.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I watched the whole world cup recently on streams. Legally. Welcome to the 21st century.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've looked at the cord-cutting possibilities in the past, but what it really came down to was that for the same set of things that my wife watches now (including a lot of sports), I'd be paying close to the same amount (or more) for various subscriptions plus wasting time tracking down dodgy and unreliable live sports streams, all in the interest of saving what, $10-15 a month at most? Maybe? In a good month....
fencepost
just a little off
That said, I probably watch way more Crunchyroll when it's not soccer season (the only reason I do cable)
I think I paid like $30 for the HDTV antenna, and it lets me get a lot of other services as well, which if you can speak multiple languages, is super sweet.
Cable did this to themselves.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Hmm...well, you might look into getting a business connection, takes no real proof of anything, and you can get a good connection, low level SLA and no ports blocked or throttling.
I've been on my plan for years with Cox cable and pay $69/mo.
Also, why would you need 50 Mb down? HD tv doesn't require that much, you can stream quite readily with multiple connections going on (multiple tvs in home on different channels at same time) for 20Mb range.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm all for cord-cutting and 'sticking it to the man', but I would spend almost as much for single services such as HBO, Netflix, etc. (10-15$/month for each service) that I do currently for FiOS.
Why would you have every service every month? This is what gets me, people are so used to cable they forget they don't have to pay each month. Want to watch GoT? Sub when it's running and cancel. I keep Hulu and Netflix pretty much all the time and swap out other streaming services as they have shows I want to watch. Most I wait for the show to end and binge them in a month. Then poof, gone until I need it again.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I almost saw a goal! - Homer
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I actually responded to a telephone survey on this topic a few days ago (here in Canada). At the end, my basic point to the person taking the survey was "Why in God's name would I pay someone to show me advertising? Get the advertising down to 2 to 3 minutes an hour, and we'll talk." Instead, I have Netflix and Prime for watching what I can, and Usenet to grab everything else that isn't on Prime or Netflix.
Every time I travel and wind up watching the TV in Hotel rooms, it just boggles my mind at how people can put up with so much advertising.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Because with mediacom there's a data cap and the 50 Mb down only has 200Gb cap. Which with a family watching Netflix, Amazon, Hulu we hit that in less than two weeks. The 100 Mb down has a 1Tb cap.
That's dumb of you both to say. Netflix doesn't equal HBO
Not really. Not wanting to be nickled and dimed by having a dozen different subscriptions to watch a handful of shows on each. My rule is if it isn't on Netflix then I'm not going to watch it. I actually have a lot more interesting things to do with my time than watch TV. So if it wasn't for my family I doubt that I would even have Netflix. I would much rather watch a documentary or a lecture than most of the crap on netflix anyway.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Why - because they kept hiking the rates for it. When I called to see if we could lower the bill they said they could add phone service for $29.99 a month. I told them "What are you trying to get me to cut the cord completely?"
And fyi it's Cox Communications. Now I read Susan Crawford's "Captive Audience" and in it she says the cable providers overcharge like mad for net service. For example she said the actual cost to provide data on Comcast network was $2 per month so why are they charging closet to $100 a month. Same is true for Cox too.
I was keeping digital cable TV around for just this reason. I would like to have something playing in the background just for random background noise. Then I did a survey on what everyone in my house watched. I found that I was the only one watching the digital cable service, and basically all I was doing was having it play Foxnews to a empty room. Basically, I was paying $60 a month for Foxnews. One of those WTF moments.
I now achieve the same thing with Plex. I created a playlist of old TV shows, Nightcourt, Hogans Heros, Gilligans Island, Brady Bunch, and tossed in some Bugs Bunny cartoons. Now when I want random background noise I just hit shuffle on Plex. The Bugs Bunny might have to go thought. I find myself skipping all the rest of the shows and watching BB. Maybe a BB playlist would be in order.....
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.