Cable companies freak out after 1 million cut cord in 3 months

NY Post ^ | 1 November 2017 | Chris Mills, BGR

[oh8eleven]

Cord-cutting, or at least the speed at which people are ditching pay TV, is on track to be the biggest upset of the year. There’s finally a collection of cheap-ish streaming services widely available, and as you’d imagine, people are jumping ship from cable as fast as humanly possible.

[reformedliberal]

All I see on youtube are selected videos for reruns or paid subscriptions for live streaming. If I have to pay separately for each channel, I might as well have cable.
______________________
We cut the cord (DirecTV) 9 years ago. I carefully bookmarked FNC and Fox Business, certain I would spend time on their websites every day. One month passed and I hadn’t visited either one and felt I was missing nothing.

Those clips are about all that is worth watching. The salient points of Hannity, Tucker and Judge Jeanine, et al, are also all that is worth seeing. Out of an hour show, over 20 minutes is commercial, 3-4 2” slots are recap, leaving 32 minutes of *show*. I actually don’t have time any longer for that sort of TV. I watch maybe 20-30 minutes of YT clips of varying sorts at night (I dip in and out of each of several clips) and we watch an hour together at dinner.

I get all the Breaking News, miss out on the Alert/Alert hysteria and am better informed than when I had FNC/FBN on all day it the background.

TV is just another addiction.

[polymuser]

I remember when cable tv began. The big draw? No commercials!
I remember John McCain pushing for lower cost and a la carte channels.
I remember when TV shows didn’t bash men.
I even remember Ernie Kovacs.

[bgill]

Out of an hour show, over 20 minutes is commercial

True for any show. I flip the channel during commercials and it's commercial after commercial for them all until I forget what I originally was watching.

[bgill]

Ok, then partially rural since there’s a “poor signal” notice on the screen a part of every day and when it is on it’s poor quality with rippling shadows on the HD channels and bad color on the non-HD sized channels. You don’t dare complain or the cable manager will tell you they don’t need your business.

[semantic]

Dropped our cable package awhile ago. Now we have just a 100mbps net service for $50/mo.

As for companies increasing net access to make up for cable losses, there's a lot of competition on the bandwidth side.

The reality is you either want to be providing content or wireless. Cable/DSL is stuck in the middle.

Tech sells transmission & receiving devices. Some - like FB, Goog, Twit, and others - have become content providers (by aggregating user supplied content).

Don't be surprised if one of these tech cos takes over the ESPN/NFL package. Disney and the other media giants need to figure out a way to play the tech content side, otherwise they are going to get hosed.

Regardless, the era of fixed/bundled pricing is dead. That's what cable relied upon, and it's what will drive them to be the next Kodak or Blockbuster.

[Old Yeller]

Those who aren’t watching the NFL any longer, may not be as likely to swap out for a better big screen. They may not want cable as much. They may not be buying the beer and pizza they used to consume during the big game day gatherings. Other snacks, soft drinks, meat for BBQs, and other things could wind up sitting on retailer’s shelves.

I think you're placing too much hope in your fellow mankind. For the most part, they can't give it up.

[Veto!]

What are you paying Comcast for internet svs? I have it for $57/month and they say it will go. up next year. Called them, said I Quit, they talked me into staying with it until my contract expires in January. Local phone company offers $44/mo service, which a neighbor says is quite good enough.

I have zero interest in anything on tv. Can plug me little set into the wall and get all the local channels, which cover important sports events including PGA tourneys, plus four PBS channels. Usually I find baseball boring, but this World Series is really exciting and it’s free.

AS for some XLNT tv series like Homeland, I can borrow them at the library. Prefer binge watching anyway.

[semantic]

Not to derail this excellent thread, but I challenge anyone who has missed a few weeks of NFL to try and watch (part of) a game.

I claim it cannot be done, at least by anyone with a functioning brain. The NFL relied on long-term imprinting to condition fans to hours of commercial programming.

However, once the spell is broken, it is literally impossible to watch for more than 5 minutes. I'll lay odds on it; go ahead and try.

[kearnyirish2]

That’s a big issue; my cable payment is subsidizing garbage I’d never watch (BET, Lifetime, etc.).

[kearnyirish2]

“I have zero interest in anything on tv.”

They gave up on you, but want you to pay for the indoctrination programming for others.

[smileyface]

Me too and I am not rural. Cannot get that combo from small carrier to save $, and I do not want to switch to the Disney-associated product....

[KC Burke]

I suspect we are going to see one of them go with an a’la cart option and they will have so much success that others would follow.

If I could eliminate my bill subsidizing ESPN, ESPN2, Headline News, CNN, MSNB, PBS, and certain other channels, I would and could probably like cable instead

[Typelouder]

Remember when they played the National Anthem before going off the air for the night?

Now you can watch athletes kneel and raise their fists 24/7.

[suthener]

(not really intending to snark at ya. just pointing out there is no escape from liberals and the empires they created)

Yeah, I know. Hypocritical, but at least I limit it as much as I can. I would argue with you if I had a leg to stand on but I don’t. At least I admit it.

[fella]

The new manditory digital signal doesn’t carry like the outlawed analog signal did. You have get a converter or a TV that accepts the digital signal. Here in FWD I get about 40 channels 12 are Hispanic, 3 are islamic and 2 are Asian. That leaves 23 American channels.

[Teacher317]

Comcast customer service is routinely voted among the worst in the US.

[exit82]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fox+news+streaming+live+now

Lots of live Foxnews streaming on Youtube.

These last a few weeks, then YOutube cans them. But then they pop up again under a different name.

No streaming for Fox Business, but you can get segments already broadcast on Youtube.

[SamAdams76]

You are right. The spell is easily broken once you stop watching NFL. I stopped watching three years ago and only watch it when I’m in a sports bar. At least then, I have beer, chicken wings and waitresses to hold my interest.

[sneakers]

enter “fox news live stream” in the search on youtube.

[sneakers]

We have sling. One of our favorite apps. I am not a fan of Hallmark channel, but may end up adding it because we heard they air “Last Man Standing”. Mr. S was not happy when they discontinued that show. We decided against it -for now.