US Cable TV Companies Quietly Bled Another 785,000 Paying Customers Last Quarter (techdirt.com) 104
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: The "cord cutting" phenomenon the cable and broadcast sector long denied or downplayed simply shows no sign of slowing down. According to the latest data by Leichtman Research, the top U.S. pay TV companies lost another 785,000 subscribers last quarter as younger Americans continue to shift to streaming video, over the air antennas, or free services like TikTok and YouTube. While alternative pay TV services (streaming on demand and live streaming) services saw a 701,000 subscriber jump during the third quarter, traditional cable companies lost an estimated 981,674 subscribers depart for greener pastures. Phone companies (AT&T, Verizon) and traditional satellite TV companies (DirecTV, Dish) lost 701,000 paying subscribers during the quarter.
Leichtman's analysis never really answers why consumers continue to flee traditional cable (high prices, bloated channel bundles, bullshit fees, comically terrible customer service), instead only focusing on the fact that this was the third best quarter for streaming services in history: "Spurred by a strong quarter from Internet-delivered vMVPD services, pay-TV net losses of about 785,000 in 3Q 2022 were more modest than in the first two quarters of the year," said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. "Not including YouTube TV, which does not regularly report subscriber totals, vMVPDs had nearly 900,000 net additions in the quarter. This was the third most quarterly net adds ever for the top publicly reporting vMVPD services."
Leichtman's analysis never really answers why consumers continue to flee traditional cable (high prices, bloated channel bundles, bullshit fees, comically terrible customer service), instead only focusing on the fact that this was the third best quarter for streaming services in history: "Spurred by a strong quarter from Internet-delivered vMVPD services, pay-TV net losses of about 785,000 in 3Q 2022 were more modest than in the first two quarters of the year," said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. "Not including YouTube TV, which does not regularly report subscriber totals, vMVPDs had nearly 900,000 net additions in the quarter. This was the third most quarterly net adds ever for the top publicly reporting vMVPD services."
just wait for the streaming to add the mouse fee (Score:2)
just wait for the streaming to add the mouse fee and the local RSN fee.
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good news Comcast home internet now comes with ESPN+ and DISNEY+ for free*
*forced hidden fee of $15.99/mo added to your bill.
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in some places Comcast is your only real choice for internet
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What about Starlink? I haven't lived outside of a major city in a long time, but I would think starlink would cover most of flyover country rather nicely. Just knowing I could escape comcast would be worth it.
p.s. I've visited lots of flyover country and it's a whole lot more entertaining at ground level then you would think looking down.
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Verizon is pushing that Internet box hard. I could definitely see going that route.
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If you're using a cable replacement service like YouTube TV, then that makes sense, but if you're using a selection of Netflix, Disney+, Amazon video, Hulu, etc., then not so much. However, many people would love to see the option to subscribe to just the regional sports network as a separate service, as that's the one thing keeping those people on cable.
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Re: just wait for the streaming to add the mouse f (Score:2)
Title Made Me Think This Was About Price Hikes (Score:2)
There are two ways Big Cable and bleed customers - by hitting them with price hikes and fees, to compensate for the other way the bleed them, from their ranks of subscribers. Of course the former leads to the latter, and on the downward spiral goes.
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Big Cable bleed customers - by hitting them with price hikes and fees...
You can cut the cable-TV cord, but you still need some way to connect to the Internet. Personally I'm lucky to live in Canada, where our CRTC (our FCC equivalent) forces cable companies to sell "bulk" internet to resellers. Basically it's a way to get hooked up to Canada's "big cable" for internet at highly discounted rates. I pay $60/mo for a 200mbit connection. The bulk resellers then offer cable TV stations, where for anouther $24/mo I get 100 channels of pretty good stuff.
The cable companies hate it
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Cable TV providers in the States ... they blame everyone but themselves.
It's the American Way!
(on Netflix at least) content is dropping off while their natively created content
This part is due to balkanization. Content used to be shared. No one ever said "Comcast can show this program but AT&T cannot", everyone was allowed to license the content. But it changed and Netflix lost license on a huge amount of stuff because the content owners decided that they wanted their own also-ran streaming service to get a share of the pie. The reason Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon make their own content is because of the excusivity by the big content owners. Ie, if you
Re: Title Made Me Think This Was About Price Hikes (Score:2)
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Starz owns a huge amount of movies. And then Netflix licensed most of them. Later Starz wanted their own streaming service. It's like Disney, they owned a ton of their own movies, and yet you could see it on cable TV despite Disney not owning a cable company. They weren't sharing for free, but they did not keep exclusives all that often.
Re: Title Made Me Think This Was About Price Hikes (Score:2)
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There are two ways Big Cable and bleed customers
There is a 3rd way: funerals.
My mom will take her cable subscription to the grave[1].
There were 3,458,697 deaths in America last year. Many of them were cable subscribers.
[1] Not literally. She wants to be cremated.
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Burning the cable TV industry sounds like a solid plan to me.
Much worse product (Score:3)
I was flying on JetBlue over the holidays and was watching a movie over their satellite TV service. I'd forgotten just how bad of an experience it is with 5-10 minutes of movie followed by 3-5 minutes of ads (mostly the same ones you've been watching even). Can't imagine why anyone would want to stick with that if they have the option for ad-free on-demand shows and movies for less money.
I guess the only people left are older generations that aren't comfortable with the Internet, but it's only a matter of time before they die off
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"I guess the only people left are older generations that aren't comfortable with the Internet, but it's only a matter of time before they die off"
You just described my mother. That does not mean your are wrong in any way.
Re: Much worse product (Score:2)
Most (young) people I know still paying for cable claim to do so for the live sports.
costly vs convenience (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're not wrong. I definitely miss that ability to just absentmindedly up/down arrow through channels until I stumble on whatever seems interesting enough to watch.
But I also realized that short of doing that on trips when I'm just relaxing in a hotel room? I'm better off just getting up from the couch and doing something else, if there's nothing specific I know I want to watch. (For a while there, I tried to sit down for the 9PM local newscast each weeknight. But I can get that fine for free with an OTA a
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I guess that works if you really prefer that your entertainment be curated by some network executive. Personally, I like having my own media library, which encompasses literally thousands of movies and TV show episodes, more music than I could realistically listen to in a lifetime, even and a few vinyl records in case I'm feeling old school.
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You and I are similar, but displaced in time. I had a library with thousands of movies, TV shows, and music. For me, physical media was king for decades. A couple of years, though... I gave it all up. I converted my entire CD collection MP3s over the course of a week or so, transcoded the movies, and mostly ignored the TV stuff, and then all of it went to family or donation.
Streaming got critical mass for me, both in quality (high bit rate) and quantity. I had once said I would only give up my physical medi
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I pay full price for cable and I do resent it. What I don't resent is how easy a cable box is to use... and how I can surf thru a bunch of channels until I can find something interesting - versus - researching what I should be watching and then having to navigate to that program. There is something to be said about pressing "ON" and "UP" "DOWN" until your marginally happy with what's on the tube with no further commands to issue besides volume level. Streaming services have more hoops to jump thru until you're watching something, and I'm just not that creative/dedicated/interested to bother with the research of what I want to watch.
I can understand the appeal, but there's a few things that make cable a non-starter for me:
1) I don't like commercials.
2) If you actually want to watch something from start to finish you need to get there on the hour (or half hour).
3) Most shows suck. It's easier to avoid sucky shows with streaming.
4) A ton of the channels are showing the same show.
That being said, if you just want some background/casual viewing those downsides might not matter much.
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#2 is not true if you have a DVR. You can watch it anytime after it airs.
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No offense intended, but the solution to this is to get more hobbies. If you are flicking through TV channels looking for something that you are "marginally happy" with, you are watching low quality TV and could spend that time doing something more enjoyable.
We are in that group (Score:4, Insightful)
We finally fully cut the cord a couple months ago. I wanted to do it several years ago, but my wife wouldn't agree. However she finally came around, after I'd pointed out a few times that she hadn't actually watched "television" for over a year.
That stupid "broadcast tv fee", by itself, is the equivalent to two or three monthly streaming subscriptions!
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Was a similar situation with my partner and I, but with Netflix instead of cable. We had it for like a year before I finally said "You know, I don't think either of us watch anything on Netflix anymore."
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I'm actually fighting that Netflix fight right now...
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What's to fight? Cancel it at the beginning of next period (without telling anyone), and see if you notice when it expires. Re-upping is a click away.
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However she finally came around, after I'd pointed out a few times that she hadn't actually watched "television" for over a year.
Sometimes we need to point out the obvious. My gf insisted we keep cable so she could watch tennis. It wasn't until I pointed it out it was literally cheaper to subscribe to online streaming services while the tennis was on and that also allowed her to watch at *her* leisure rather than fixed program times that she finally realised how pointless cable is.
Fifty Bux (Score:3)
Give us a commercial-less streaming package of everything without premiums for $50.
Starting NOW: every day you think you want to wait, we'll agree to a dollar less
And this is SUUUUPER generous.
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"I demand you turn the 14 ton dump truck I lease into a Ferrari this instant."
You're asking for a streaming service. Those are available for much less than $50.
Plus, is that really "super generous"?
You'd think they would lower the price (Score:1)
Some might be tired of supporting propoganda (Score:3)
The fact that extremely biased news sites, religious and shopping channels get funded through these fees should also be considered. In fact, I recommend you cut the cord for this reason alone. People have been asking for ale carte for ages now, and its completely technically possible, but the industry has been resistant. Now they are raising fees to further shoulder the burden on their remaining customers, which will only speed up the pace of the exodus. Good riddance. Some of us don't want to fund channels that run contrary to our beliefs and they give you no means to accomplish that goal without cutting the cord completely.
I'm not being alarmist when I say this has played a role in the fraying of tribes in the US. Even advertisers can no longer keep some outlets in line because this revenue is never at threat. It's way past time to change that IMHO.
More Layoffs underway at CNN (Score:2, Informative)
https://www.axios.com/2022/11/... [axios.com]
CableTV orgs are in a bad place economically. A recession plus streaming competition plus bean-counters watching Musk clean house while keeping Twitter afloat. Asking themselves, why can't we do that here?
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Whoopeee! (Score:2)
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.
Meanwhile the "free" streaming services get worse (Score:2)
and worse, as the YT adpocalypse means almost every video worth watching has a "sponsored content" segment or multiple segments to the point where the ads in the video are often interrupted by the ads interjected.
It's now worse than actual TV. Pause that video so you can go piss? Oh you were gone 3 minutes, here's another 30+ seconds of ads.
You wanted to see that 2 minute video clip? Here's a 3 minute ad. On my computers, I have enough filtering and blocking I NEVER see video ads on YT and with the visu
It can't happen to a better bunch of folks! (Score:2)
I have no tears to shed for cable tv companies who are also typically the only ISP or one of two. I find it ironic that as they desperate need people to stay, I'm going to do a trial period (maybe a week) where I just tether my phone to a pair of routers. I've already tested it for 5 minutes but never did a trial run to see if it is something I can tolerate fulltime.
As it is, I have already downgraded to a 100/5 (5?!! bastards I tell ya) and it's still $51 a month. My phone plan is $30 (total) unlimited 5g
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Quite.
I lived off 4G for the last 5 years (in London), because the local broadband was offering me a choice of one DSL carrier (resold by 20 different companies, but all the same BT line), and they could only promise 4Mbps down, 1Mbps up. I can hit a city centre with a stone from my back garden, but that's all they "could" do for me.
4G on a similar unlimited (and specifically unlimited tethering) plan was cheaper, far faster and I was even doing it on a rolling monthly contract so that I could stop it or c
A la carte? (Score:2)
Reason (Score:2)
They should raise prices to make up lost revenue. (Score:2)
The Compact Disc of entertainment. (Score:1)
Rather odd this story is focused on cable cutting rather specifically, especially during a time of questionable economic stability (read: recession) and layoffs just starting to kick in.
Sure, I get the cord cutting, but just surprised we're not also reading about streaming cutting too. This is like sitting around talking about the decline of music revenue using only the dying metric of compact disc sales. Even measuring the cable cutting statistic, is becoming pointless. The only ones who care, are also
Oh no! (Score:2)
Oh no, how am I going to watch MSNBC without cable? How will I know what to think?
admin (Score:1)