Free Republic

In the summer of 2014, the cable and satellite bundle peaked. One hundred million households were subscribed to ESPN, the most successful channel in the history of cable, and the apex of the greatest business in the history of media had been reached. But no one knew it. Cable, satellite, and media executives were all blissfully unaware of what was coming. Fox Sports FS1 had launched the prior year — yours truly appeared on the very first show in the history of the network, a 2013 college football preview show. In the summer of 2014 the SEC Network would make...

So far, 2023 was not very nice to cable TV companies. They lost a total of 1,820,943 subscribers in just the first 91 days of 2023. That works out to be over 20,000 subscribers every day. This comes from the Leichtman Research Group, which tracks the cable TV and streaming markets. If that trend continues, over 7 million Americans will cancel cable TV in 2023. We will soon get a good idea of how that trend is going in the 2nd quarter of 2023. In August, multiple cable and satellite companies will report earnings for the 2nd quater. This will...

It was seemingly just a matter of time before streaming overtook at least one form of conventional TV, and now that moment has arrived. Nielsen data indicates that streaming TV viewership in the US surpassed cable for the first time this July. About 34.8 percent of viewing time went to shows on internet services, or slightly more than the 34.4 percent for cable. Streams haven't yet overtaken traditional TV as a whole (broadcasts still represented 21.6 percent), but it's clear online video is capturing more attention. The shift was helped by a flurry of major releases. Netflix had the largest...

Consumers continue to dump their cable and satellite subscriptions at an accelerated pace as the industry continues to see a fall in earnings across the board and for the first time ever, more people are watching on streaming than on cable. According to the Hollywood Reporter, earnings are down for the second quarter. Comcast, Charter, Cox, Altice, DirecTV, Dish, Verizon and Hulu’s live TV, all lost subscribers. Comcast was down a whopping 500,000 subscribers while DirecTV was down 400,000. Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall add that the 2,256,000 decline on subscribers is the worst fall on record. Cahall also noted...

CNN is set to launch its streaming service CNN+ later this year, and the network has now revealed the subscription rates. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the streamer will launch at $2.99 a month, which will be locked in for life for early subscribers, so long as their accounts remain active. This promotional deal will only be available for the first month of CNN+’s launch; after that, subscriptions will cost $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year. There is also expected to be a cheaper, ad-supported tier and a CNN+/HBO Max bundle, according to the Los Angeles Times. Further...

Took the first step to cutting the cable cord. Currently have Cox and they were charging $130 for three TVs with basic channels. Switching to YouTube TV at $65 for three TVs. Not crazy about their politics but Cox isn't much better with their Hug project for illegal aliens and those they left behind. YouTube TV has the closest lineup to what we're used to with cable although I'm looking at adding frndly TV for a few bucks a month to get the History channel. I'm planning on keeping Cox internet but we have a new fiber optic provider coming...

An incredible “27% of U.S. cable TV subscribers plan to end their subscriptions by the end of 2021, which is nearly double the 15% that did so in 2020 and a big jump from the 3% annual decline [in] 2020,” reports TV Technology. This is another disaster for left-wing Hollywood and the fake news media, for it is through the cable TV racket that naïve Americans pay a monthly fortune for channels they never watch. And it is this racket that allows failing left-wing outlets like MTV, CNNLOL, and ESPN to hold on. Yep, whether you watch them or not,...

Share this with your family and friends if you find it useful.You can easily save over a $1,000 per year by cutting the cable TV cord. That money can go towards many other things, including a better internet connection to stream alternative entertainment and news. Additionally you can invest your savings, put it towards a vacation, do home improvement or give it to a worthy charity.I trade financial securities for a living. In this business we have a phrase, "FOMO", the Fear Of Missing Out. It's a psychological barrier for many traders. It makes people do things they do not...

OK, a vanity post here - With Fox having completely gone to the dark side, and not wanting to spend any money to support any of the mainstream media any more, I'm looking for a streaming service that can replace my cable. I'm looking to have local channels (which I can do with an antenna if necessary), some sports, alternative news, older movies, older shows, maybe some history.

Key Points: At least three large U.S. media companies expect the number of U.S. households that subscribe to a traditional pay-TV bundle to fall to about 50 million in the next five years. At 50 million subscribers, it’s unclear the current pay-TV model can survive without falling further. The jury is still out on if streaming economics will convince investors to breath new life into traditional media companies.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson achieved the highest ever ratings for a cable television program in the second quarter of 2020, receiving an average of 4.331 million nightly viewers for Tucker Carlson Tonight. Fox News itself continue to crush its liberal media competitors, achieving an an average viewership of 3.574 million viewers. MSNBC and CNN lagged far behind with 1.999 million and 1.806 million. Sean Hannity came in a close second place behind Tucker, receiving 4.311 million nightly viewers. Both primetime hosts are generally unafraid to confront the pervasive left-wing cultural authoritarian pervading through nearly every major American institution and media...

The HGTV show House Hunters featured its first “Throuple”, or polyamorous couple, on its show Wednesday night. A “Throuple” is a relationship made up of three people. In this case, two women and a man named Lori, Geli, and Brian. The couple has two children, who are biologically related to Brian and Lori. In the episode, the trio describes their ideal home as one that has a three-car garage, a master bedroom that fits three people, and room for the two children. While looking at a house’s kitchen, Lori remarked on its size as a “couple’s kitchen, not a throuple’s...

Cord cutting is having a major impact on TV network ratings. Last week, Deadline released some 2019 viewership numbers that showed entertainment networks saw their ratings drop double digits. AMC ratings dropped 22%, FX dropped 21%, TBS was down 17%, USA lost 18%, and TNT was down 15%. NBC Sports Network lost 20% of its viewers in 2019. News didn’t do much better. Only Fox News saw its numbers go up with 3% growth. MSNBC lost 3% and CNN lost 9% of its viewers in 2019. The Disney Channel saw the biggest drop in 2019 with 30% of its viewers...

Portland Press Herald November 1, 2019 Cable companies want judge to pause new Maine law requiring à la carte channel choices BY EDWARD D. MURPHY STAFF WRITER A Maine federal judge is deciding whether to put a temporary hold on a first-in-the-nation law that requires cable companies to offer channels on an à la carte basis, a case that pits consumer choice against corporate control. Federal District Court Judge Nancy Torreson did not indicate when she might rule on the request for a temporary restraining order sought by the Comcast cable company and nine cable broadcasters, including Disney, Fox Cable...

Last week, Comcast, Disney, CBS, and Fox sued to block a new Maine law that would require cable companies to offer à la carte TV. Now, a second lawsuit filed by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association representing more than 200 cable networks, has been filed to block Maine’s new à la carte TV law.

Pay-TV keeps taking hits in subscribers, with Leichtman Research Group finding in its latest quarterly report that about 1.53 million people dropped their pay-TV subscriptions during the second quarter of 2019. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of decline, per Leichtman, and more than a million of subscribers cutting their service from the same time period in 2018 (420,000). Consisting of the top 14 pay-TV services in the U.S. making up about 93% of the market, which includes satellite, cable, phone and vMVPDs. Satellite companies lost about 855,000 subscribers during Q2, with DirecTV accounting for 778,000 alone in its fifth...

Dish Network Corp. has stopped carrying 22 regional sports networks owned by the Walt Disney Co. as negotiations over a new distribution contract broke down. The channels, which went dark Friday morning on Dish and its direct-to-consumer streaming platform Sling, are the sports networks that Disney acquired in its $71.3 billion acquisition of the bulk of entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox earlier this year. Disney is in the process of selling 21 of the regional sports networks to Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. in a deal valued at more than $10 billion. The one other channel—New York’s YES Network, which...

“Judge Jeanine” isn’t holding court Saturday night. Fox News Channel replaced tonight’s broadcast of Jeanine Pirro’s weekly program with a repeat episode of its documentary series “Scandalous,” just days after the 21st Century Fox-owned cable-news network said it condemned remarks the outspoken host made about Minnesota Democrat Ihan Omar. The change in Fox News’s schedule was evident in an on-screen cable guide. But a Pirro broadcast had been placed in newspaper TV listings for this evening.

According to the far-left outlet’s own fact sheet, CNN is currently available in 90 million households. This means 90 million people pay money to CNN every month even though fewer than one million on average actually watch CNN. The game is rigged, folks. And it is especially rigged against those normal Americans who on a daily basis are bullied, taunted, discriminated against, demonized, threatened, and menaced by CNN. You see, it works like this… Even if you don’t watch CNN, you are still forced to pay for CNN. It is called a carriage fee, and every month you subsidize this...

During President Trump’s surprise visit to Al Asad Airbase in Iraq to celebrate Christmas with the U.S. troops there, he rubbed shoulders with America’s finest as he took selfies and signed autographs for them. Some of those autographs were signed on the iconic “Make America Great Again” hats that some soldiers reportedly brought to him. For any other president it would be treated a fun and warm moment, but not for this one and not if CNN had anything to say about it. During Wednesday’s edition of The Situation Room, fill-in host and chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, seemingly...