Posted on 07/25/2018 11:39:09 AM PDT by Zakeet
It is not a pleasant time to be a cable company. Decades of regional monopolies are being swept away, leaving us with - the horror! - actual competition. Prices on streaming bundles are so low that companies are actually struggling to make money on the $40-a-month skinny services. Any time margins are so low that telecoms giants are complaining, you know that it’s good for consumers.
Unsurprisingly, people are keen to ditch cable. While traditional pay TV is still the biggest distribution method by far, a pair of new studies out this week suggest that cord-cutting is about to hit new highs. Record cord-cutting numbers are absolutely nothing new, but the interesting thing is that year after year, cord-cutting numbers are consistently outpacing analyst expectations.
Let’s start with data from New York-based eMarketer, which sources its data by aggregating third-party sources. For the pay TV forecast, numbers come from two dozen data sources, including big names like Nielsen, Deloitte, Kagan, GfK, Parks Associates, and MoffettNathanson. In short, it’s a comprehensive overview of what industry experts think.
[Snip]
As for why people are leaving services, a new survey of over 3,000 Americans from cg42 provides some insights. The study’s author Stephen Beck spoke to Marketwatch, and the message seems clear:
[Snip]
The trend is moving firmly away from pay TV, as cord cutters find doing so means hefty savings. Cord cutters saved an average of $85 each month after leaving pay TV, according to survey responses, and of those who left , 79% said they were happy with their decision to cut the cord. Only 5% said they regretted their decision and would go back to pay TV.
At this point, it doesn’t seem as though there’s really any way cable TV survives in its current condition.
(Excerpt) Read more at bgr.com ...
with no commercials I think ... that’s why we paid for cable ... to avoid commercials ...
The title of this thread is "Two different surveys confirm that cable companies are screwed." That implies that people are getting their video elsewhere.
I was addressing that quaint notion that people are going to cancel cable and stream their video instead.
They might cancel their cable television package, but they're not going to use the cell phone's 4G to binge watch Netflix.
They - the cable & telecoms won’t care. They are already operating in or buying into the mediums that Netflix and video streaming use - the Internet and Wireless (cell phones). The only BIG loosers will not be the “Cable TV” providers (Comcast, Verizon, Dish, AT&T, Charter/Spectrum, ect) but individual cable channels themselves.
Cutting the cord will have the same affect as would unbundling “cable channel packages”, but since the cable TV distribution providers could not get the cable channel conglomerates
(they are the ones who insist on the bundling, because each one owns many different channels and insist the cable distribution networks provide them in packages)
to go along with “pay per channel” options, more of the revnue of the current cable & internet providers will just shift from the big channel bundles imposed by the media/channel conglomerates to the Internet & wireless spectrum for video streaming.
Just expect more ads on Netflix and in video streaming, eventually to the nauseating point it is now on “cable TV”. You say not? Well just think back to when “cable TV” began and it was about paying for mostly “commercial free” TV. That lasted as long as “pay TV” hadn’t realized they could make as much money from ads as they were getting in pay-tv subscriptions. All the current “cord cutting” commercial free stuff will follow that same route, eventually.
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-commercials.html
I firmly believe that cord-cutting is driving the MAGA movement. Without the cable TV monopoly on the flow of information, people are waking up to how they are actually lying about everything.
What will eventually happen is that entrepreneurs will establish individual streaming websites with content, and if the quality of that content is better than what’s on these channels they will eventually supplant them.
“What will eventually happen is that entrepreneurs will establish individual streaming websites with content, and if the quality of that content is better than what’s on these channels they will eventually supplant them.”
My guess is that long before thay happens, the cable channels that exist now - many of them (while they have plenty of capital) will put up their own video streaming websites and channels, for current run shows, just like many of their reruns are already on on Netflix and ROKU. Where the ad dollars go, they will go too.
Cool, thanks. I’ll check it out.
“Two different surveys confirm that cable companies are screwed”
With internet service only, their only cost is the cable.
In theory, routers could form free to surfer metropolitan area networks.
With a metropolitan area network, most popular videos and web pages would be available without having to pay a monthly ISP fee.
I still have DirecTV and have hated it since ATT took over. Customer service has gone to complete hell and they redid the tv guide to some unreadable abomination.
I agree with you about lowering rates. However, what I have always wanted was a way to have a say in what I am paying for. There is so much in these "bundles" that I don't watch, it is just irritating. Why can't they have plans where you get so many channels, and you get to choose the channels? Like a menu, one from column A, one from column B --- so that you are buying channels that you would actually watch. A choice. Then you would be improving the quality of the programming/movies because you would be choosing what you want to watch.
That is the same in our household. We only use the cable for the internet. Then with Hulu Plus and other options, we pretty much watch what we want.
Surveying the people that cut doesn’t tell us anything about the people that haven’t. They still have over half the country as customers, they ain’t dying for a long time.
That was cable tv's biggest mistake, and is the exact point where it broke the fundamental contract with consumers. Once they chose to charge the advertisers and the viewers, they sealed their fate.
It was only a matter of time until someone figured out another way to deliver programming to consumers. If the operators of that new platform chose to restore the old rules, they'd likely be overwhelmed with cord cutting customers.
That's exactly what happened.
In my area of Pennsylvania, Xfinity (Comcast) and Verizon have a lock on cable. How can I cut the cable? but use something like Roku, and latch onto wifi somehow for internet. My current Xfinity Triple Play, with the big movie packages, etc. removed, still costs me just under $200 per month. One thing I DIDN’T give up was BIG10 Network. Thanks.
Oh, right, there was a really big reason why they didn’t want the FCC to get rid of the ‘net neutrality’ regulations - it allowed free ride on any utility pole, and indemnity from any damage to that pole.
If it was a power pole, we paid it to the power company, just like the phone company did if they were on the pole too. If it was a phone line pole, we paid rent to the phone company. It wasn’t free.
“They need to LOWER their rates and IMPROVE PROGRAMMING/MOVIE quality”
Yep, but they negotiated rates with the channels that they are broadcasting, whom negotiated rates from the content creators. EVERYONE needs to get a grip on the reality that they are going to have to take a haircut to survive. As soon as Hulu gets decent cloud DVR down Frontier can kiss my ass other than maybe hanging on to my Internet service.
They need to offer a la carte programming so people can ditch the LEFT MEDIA CARTEL.
This is excellent news. It is certainly moving in that direction.
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