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Television Businesses The Almighty Buck Entertainment

Cord-Cutters Are Ditching Their Cable Packages At the Fastest Rate Ever (axios.com) 204

Posted by msmash from the watching-tv-in-2017 dept.
Sara Fischer, writing for Axios: Cord-cutters are ditching their cable packages at the fastest rate ever, opting instead for cheaper, bundled digital TV options, according to the latest Magid Broadcast Study. The trend reflects consumers' preferences to ditch bundled cable packages for more affordable, niche bundled services that can be accessed on TV box tops or on mobile. For consumers, there are more bundled packages than ever, all popping up around similar price ranges. YouTube TV and Hulu TV launched within the past two month, joining the likes of SlingTV and DirectTV Now -- all at a roughly $40 monthly price point -- a bargain considering the average American pays $92 monthly for cable.
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Cord-Cutters Are Ditching Their Cable Packages At the Fastest Rate Ever More

Cord-Cutters Are Ditching Their Cable Packages At the Fastest Rate Ever

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  • Data caps (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chewbacon ( 797801 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:23PM (#54485555)

    They'll just keep tightening the data caps in their favor. Keeps me from watching 4K streaming which I can't even get on cable.

    • They'll just keep tightening the data caps in their favor.

      No, I don't think they will. Comcast has been very smart in this regard. The current cap is typically 1TB which is plenty enough for streaming today, but Comcast knows that eventually, higher resolution, more usage and other factors will make that 1TB a real limitation on data usage for many subscribers.

      Then Comcast will leverage that limitation for greater profits, all without ever decreasing the data cap.

  • Cord-cutters are ruining TV (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:25PM (#54485579)

    There are significant costs to produce TV shows. You cheap bastards are ruining TV and driving networks out of business. All cord-cutters are cheapskate assholes who are ruining TV for the rest of us.

    • Re:Cord-cutters are ruining TV (Score:4, Insightful)

      by powerlord ( 28156 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:34PM (#54485677) Journal

      There are significant costs to produce TV shows. You cheap bastards are ruining TV and driving networks out of business. All cord-cutters are cheapskate assholes who are ruining TV for the rest of us.

      Oh woe is us! However did television exist before Cable TV? However will television survive?

      • There are significant costs to produce TV shows. You cheap bastards are ruining TV and driving networks out of business. All cord-cutters are cheapskate assholes who are ruining TV for the rest of us.

        Oh woe is us! However did television exist before Cable TV? However will television survive?

        Hopefully by putting out TV shows I actually want to watch.

    • Re:Cord-cutters are ruining TV (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:36PM (#54485691)

      Not really. My Netflix monthly fees goes directly towarding funding TV shows and movies.

      You're the asshole who's still overpaying for cable instead of helping Netflix fund more TV shows and movies.

      • You're the asshole who's still overpaying for cable instead of helping Netflix fund more TV shows and movies.

        Yeah because we've never seen films or series that were exclusive to HBO before ...

        You're the arsehole who keeps paying Netflix instead of helping HBO fund more TV shows.

        • Netflix is available worldwide. HBO? Not so much, so fuck them.

          • Netflix is available worldwide. HBO? Not so much, so fuck them.

            Netflix has as much geoblocking on content as any other cable provider. Netflix in the rest of the world is a sad sad shadow of what they provide in the USA. I know that's not Netflix's fault but they're just like every other cable company, only that they have a global business.

            • Netflix in the rest of the world is a sad sad shadow of what they provide in the USA.

              I already know, I'm in Canada.

    • and Netflix, Hulu, Amazon etc are managing to produce these just fine, thanks.The cable-cutters are getting tired of paying for 200-channel packages they watch maybe a dozen from (i.e. Disney/ABC/ESPN , or Discovery channels). The major sports leagues are starting to offer streaming options , once people can get live sports online without a cable contract those companies are utterly fscked.

      • You forgot pay for but still endure many commercial breaks... I don't mind content with commercials like on the cwtv website so long as I'm not paying for it.

    • Re:Cord-cutters are ruining TV (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:48PM (#54485827) Journal
      Apparently you Millennials don't know what an 'antenna' is, just like you can't read a clock that has hands instead of just numbers.

      • Hands? That is so 18th century!

        • Surprise! I have an analog-face clock at home that's WiFi enabled and gets it's time-sync from the NTP server daemon on my desktop computer, which has a GPS receiver connected to it, so it's basically a Stratum-2 source. Between that and the TCXO that's single-digit PPM accurate, it stays accurate within 1 second all year 'round. Where is your digital-clock God now? xD

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by chihowa ( 366380 )

            That setup would make Rube Goldberg proud. You can get subsecond time syncing in the clock directly from NIST [wikipedia.org], too, without all of the intermediate steps. (I have a setup similar to yours, too, with a GPSDO.)

      • The value of an OTA antenna varies wildly based on where you live. I happen to live close enough to a major city that I can get ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and three dozen junky local channels by antenna. I'm using a $12.50/month Tivo DVR (though setting up MythTV is on the to-do list.)

        But I have friends further out that tried the same setup and can only get one or two of the four big networks and maybe ten other channels.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      I BUY the shows I like.

      If the rest burn down in a giant cataclysm then I am fine with that.

      We didn't cut the cord to be cheap. We cut the cord to avoid subsidizing crap we despise.

      • Me too. If you can be patient - and I can - older shows can be dirt cheap on DVD or even Blu Ray. Ripping them to disk and setting them up with Kodi streaming is a bit tedious, but I've been doing this for so long that it's like having my own private Netflix. Thousands of hours of content, no commercials, all legally purchased.

  • Death spiral cycle (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SPopulisQR ( 4972769 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:26PM (#54485589)
    Unfortunately for the industry, fewer subscribers will mean fewer revenues. Fewer revenues will mean higher allocation of the costs to the existing customers. There will be an inevitable increase in both internet and cable service rates. Cable service rate increases will further discourage more customers to cut the cord.

    • Fewer revenues will mean higher allocation of the costs to the existing customers.

      Businesses set their prices to maximize profit, not to "cover their costs". Their marginal cost to provide the service just sets a price floor. In a competitive market, any profit surplus will be squeezed out, to the benefit of consumers, but cable companies are mostly local monopolies. So if they could make more money by raising prices they would already be doing it.

      • Re:Death spiral cycle (Score:5, Informative)

        by ausekilis ( 1513635 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:56PM (#54485903)

        So if they could make more money by raising prices they would already be doing it.

        Who's to say they don't?

        My parents started with Comcast some 20 years ago paying $40 a month for Basic+ cable (enough for Nickelodeon and ESPN and such). I remember having somewhere on the order of 60-70 channels. When they finally cut the cord last year, they were paying $150 a month, including the "mandatory cable box" for roughly 150 channels, many of which had both SD and HD versions.

        I cut the cord much earlier, but I started at $55 a month for ~100 channels in 2005, ended at $80 for ~100 channels, after 4 years. The only changes? A golf channel and 3 new religious channels that I couldn't give a crap about. It was either Comcast or DSL, and both often failed to deliver advertised speeds, not to mention lengthy downtimes when they happened.

      • It's just a bunch of local monopolies breaking up. The open market price for a month of TV is the streaming rate. The cable subscriber rate is the 'chump rate'.

        Eventually most chumps will get smart and the cable company will have to drop its prices on TV.

        Data prices aren't going up, they are barely holding new market entrants out at today's broadband prices. If they try and raise them, all they will do is cause a stampede of new fiber providers, more cell data towers, neighborhood/HOA purchase of SLA b

    • Which is why Net Neutrality is not the answer. Competition among Internet service providers is.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Cable companies should be happy to be able to have other services like Internet beside TV!

    • I think the real problem is dishonest pricing. For Netflix, Amazon Prime video streaming, Hulu, Playstation Vue, Sling.tv, Youtube TV, etc... etc..., the advertised price is what you pay. And the pricing isn't necessarily cheap, either. I think Playstation Vue and Youtube TV and around $40/month.

      I get brochures from Comcast, DirecTV, and Dish in the mail at least once a month each, and the prices in dazzling gold lettering have fuckall to do with the actual amount I would see on the bill. The fine pr

  • Just wait for the internet to come forced bundled with crap the drives costs up like. So basic Internet starts at $70-$90 or you can take a very limited web that may have local stuff and big sites blocked off unless you move up to full web.

    CBS online and you must have it to buy SHOWTIME GO.
    Di$ney online
    E$PN / ABC WEB
    NBC Online
    FOX Online with fox news
    CNN Web
    NBCSN WEB
    YOUTUBE Basic

    You better hope that HBO NOW can still be gotten with any web ISP with out having take an basic Web Entertainment package.

    and web Entertainment package is not part of the any $700+ DIA Fiber lines. Other then the hotel packagers

    • The internet streaming services I want are already forced-bundled with cable. Hell, even PBS interrogates me as to what my local PBS station is when I use their website. I don't have one. You can't get PBS with an antenna here.

    • They can try that. They can also lose the business of people like me, who will not tolerate having things forced on me that I do not want and will not use.

      There's only ONE device in my house that needs Internet to operate, and that's my DVR, which receives it's Program Guide updates and software updates that way. Of course it's got a modem built into it, and if necessary I'd ditch my cellphone in favor of a landline so the DVR would keep working. Or just stop watching TV entirely. There's plenty of other

      • ISPs would pop up and how will they get to you cell based?

        When the cable co owns TV content and when ATT / Directv owns HBO / TW (NOT TWC) and they are your only choice?

        WIll systems like WOW go Internet only? drop TV channels that say you must have our on line system as part of basic web for non TV subs?

        • I'm really glad I don't live in your imaginary totally dystopian future, if I did I'd've slit my wrists by now.
          Really honestly I don't even care much about this subject. I have OTA broadcast TV that costs me nothing and that's all I care about. OTA broadcast isn't going away anytime soon, probably never, or at least for as long as I live. Even if it did I wouldn't be too broke up over it, I'd find other things to do with my time.

  • I want more TV choice and be able to buy hardware with out outlet / mirroring / per device fees / per stream fees.

    $8+ outlet / device fees are the real killer. Why not make it per stream so you can have 3-4+ rooms but only 2-3 streams being paid for.

    • I want more TV choice and be able to buy hardware with out outlet / mirroring / per device fees / per stream fees.

      $8+ outlet / device fees are the real killer. Why not make it per stream so you can have 3-4+ rooms but only 2-3 streams being paid for.

      This is in part why I went with my own "DVR" solution instead of using the crappy hardware the cable company provides. I use HDHomerun Prime with cable card as the tuner, run that through TV Headend which acts as the DVR/PVR TV Guide and proxies the live TV Streams to all of the TV sets in the house.

      I can pause a program in 1 room resume in another. Watch on any TV set in the house for the $2/month CC rental instead of $6/month/TV set-top box rental from the cable company. And I have multiple TB of di

    • Do you live in a house and not an apartment? Get an antenna on your roof, get TV for free. You'd be surprised at how little it hurts in the long run to not bother with 'streaming' anything or useless cable channels. You get over it quickly enough. It's like sugar addiction: for a while you crave, then you get past it to a healthier place.
  • As someone who grew up watching far too much TV, I had a hard time bringing myself to get away from cable. It finally got to the point where the content offered just wasn't worth it to me and noticed that the bundle I subscribed to with Comcast had crept up to $150/month for a pretty barebones package (modest internet speed and a minimum on channels). A couple months ago I made the decision to drop TV and go internet only, I'd pick up SlingTV if I really missed it and still save money in the end. I figured

    • I had a similar experience with Spectrum. I explained that I was tired of paying so much - and the only reason I need TV anyway is to watch baseball, which Fox Sports regional channels have a monopoly on. Once I told them how much SlingTV costs (implicit threat there) they pulled out a secret package that was a lot cheaper plus free HBO for a year so I can watch Game of Thrones when it is new. My cable bill was around $180, now it is around $120. Still too high, but it is at the point that an internet-only

  • Oh, about 10 years ago now, I think. Glad to see that people are getting the clue, finally. Now, if we can get them to understand that paying for 'streaming' is just a different kind of 'cable', and get them to put antennas on their roofs, they'll enjoy not having to pay anyone for anything.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gmack ( 197796 )
      The issue is not paying for cable, it is that we end up paying for overpriced packages for channels not even worth watching. I can get netflix for far less than cable and it's ad free.
      • I tried Netflix for a while. TiVo even supports it directly. There wasn't enough I wanted to watch on Netflix to justify the monthly cost of that, either.
        Aside from the cost of cable, there's a dirty little secret that few people seem to know about with cable TV: They recompress the living daylights out of everything, so it ends up looking blocky as hell when there's any sort of motion on the screen. They do this so they can fit all those shitty channels you're paying for (but never watch) into the availab

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gmack ( 197796 )
          Last time I tried watching TV was on a plane and before long, the constant ads drove me crazy, it's worse than Youtube. I can't watch something that annoying for free let alone pay for it on cable so no antenna for me either.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mentil ( 1748130 )

      L.O.L. That is nothing I am whey a head of you. I cut the chord on my SCREEN.
      This post composited by Alexa.

    • If I put an antenna on my roof, I will get one, maybe two channels.

      Cable doesn't come to my street, so I have access from a WISP who charges me $100/mo for 90GB at 6Mbps.

      Streaming is the only way for me to watch TV. I could live without TV, but I choose not to.

  • Pay me now or pay me later (Score:4, Informative)

    by paiute ( 550198 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:44PM (#54485777)
    If I ran Comcast, I wouldn't give a crap if you cut the cable TV cord. Where are you going to get your streaming video, pal? Over my internet line, that's where. So I can charge you whatever I need to charge you for internet access to keep my revenues the same.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by HornWumpus ( 783565 )

      No.

      Comcast has real competition in most markets. And even at today's internet rates, new entrants are common. Calling Comcast a monopoly requires crazy mental gyrations.

      Comcast doesn't have pricing power on broadband in most markets. No amount of wishful thinking will change that.

      If they try what you suggest, they just accelerate their ultimate demise.

      The only thing stopping me from getting fiber is the high install cost and the low cost of 100mbit service from comcast. The monthly bills are alread

    • Comcast is signing up more subscribers than ever before. They signed up 42,000 new video subscribers in the last quarter alone. So they aren't hurting.
    • I think that would drive cell companies to ramp up capacity to replace Comcast.

    • Re:Pay me now or pay me later (Score:5, Interesting)

      by John.Banister ( 1291556 ) * on Thursday May 25, 2017 @04:48PM (#54487465) Homepage
      If I was Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook, and that piddly company was overtaxing my revenue stream (customers), I'd form a consortium, buy it out, and run the last mile like the utility it ought to be. If I was Priceline, eBay, Netflix and Expedia, I'd join that consortium just to be sure it isn't representing too narrow a range of interests. There's no shortage of losers when the gatekeeper discourages participation by siphoning off too much money.

  • We have choices (Score:4, Interesting)

    by svendsen ( 1029716 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:48PM (#54485833)
    Which I think a lot of companies are forgetting especially cable. I pay $70/month for internet only (300down/20up), Netflix ($20/month), Music ($15/m), Kindle unlimited ($10/M). So $115/M for more entertainment than I can consume in a lifetime plus all the endless free stuff on the web. I can get focused entertainment which I find good and on demand. I am already considering downgrading my netflix package and even my cable speeds because they aren't giving me as much value as I am willing to pay for.

    Why would I want to pay for shows that I don’t find valuable (or can get elsewhere), pay for a cable box, pay for DVR service, etc. that I don’t find valuable? This same applies to an earlier topic of Hollywood that was on Slashdot. They don’t produce things I find valuable so why would I pay for it?

    And when I do have to call the cable company cause they raised my rates and I have to do the song & dance with them to get it back down they try to upsell you on everything. No I don’t want package XYZ, I don’t watch sports at all (that blows their minds), I don’t need your VoIP I have cell phone service, etc.

  • "Channels" is an outdated concept (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nealric ( 3647765 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @12:48PM (#54485839)

    The biggest issue is not cost per-se, but that the whole idea of "channels" is obsolete.

    Why would I wait for a specific day or time to see the content of my choosing? Worse, even when what I want to see is playing on a given channel, 1/3 of the content is ads. Yes, DVR can ameliorate this, but it's really a crutch because I have to choose content I'm interested in advance and then wait. When I moved, I was given "free" cable for a year along with my internet package. I think I may have watched it for 30 minutes the entire year. I go over to friends/family's houses who still watch live TV and I feel like I've been transported back in time to the 20th century.

    • Agreed. I don't gave a flying f*** what "channel" my show is on. I just want to know when, which with Netflix means whenever I'm ready to watch it. Even before DVRs, I didn't have time to watch TV on their schedule. I recorded with ye olde VCR, clunky as it was compared to the DVR. And of course Netflix is even better, since there aren't any commercials to FF past.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CODiNE ( 27417 )

      "Commercials!! Everybody run!!"

      "It's back on!!"

      "He found the gun behind a bush"

    • Why would I wait for a specific day or time to see the content of my choosing?

      Because said "specific day or time" is when "the content of [your] choosing" is performed live. In households that I have observed, the most common live programming is sport matches, political talk shows, and entertainment industry award shows.

  • No cable, TV for news and other stuff, Netflix for series, Internet, and that's it. BTW, I've created this Android app to find out which TV stations are available around you: https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

    • I went to the trouble of installing a high-gain antenna in my attic... but streaming is so easy I can't actually recall the last time I used the antenna.

      The local stations either have a free streaming option or they aren't showing anything I care about (usually the latter). The Internet lets me see more or less whatever I want from anywhere in the world within an hour of first broadcast (of course, that's not with Netflix).

    • FYI for everyone: You don't need an 'app' from some Slashdotter, you can get a list of stations in your area, by zipcode, direct from the FCC's website: https://www.fcc.gov/media/engi... [fcc.gov]

  • Megid Broadcast Study drops a Meteo on the cable industry.
    Oh, Magid. Carry on...

  • I just thought I'd mention that for me personally, not only do I not do cable, I don't do netflix. Between stuff like youtube, crunchyroll, and miscellanious sites like gooddrama.to, I can't imagine where I would get the time to look at anything else.

    I expect that I could spend the next ten years trying to cover what happened with asian television in the last year, and by then there'll be another ten years of material.

    Plus there's the project of looking over the (admittedly low quality) versions of 60

  • Does anyone else get irrationally irritated by this, wishing that these slow-adopters would somehow be required to pay more for taking this long to figure this out? They've been keeping the cable and traditional broadcast television industries in business all this time, to the detriment of all of us. I know I should see this as a good thing, and I'm not *really* serious. I just wish they had to pay some kind of penalty (aside from having had to pay for cable all this time).

  • I am finally getting my wish [slashdot.org]. :)

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