11 ms·

The trickle of canceled cable TV subscribers last year has turned into a stream

32 points by selamattidur 15y ago

laconian 15y ago
What drove me to cut was this: the content is getting steadily worse, bandwidth is becoming exponentially cheaper for providers, and yet - the price just kept going up. I would expect to pay less YOY instead! My in-laws subscribe to a cable service in France called "Neuf", that gives them phone, television, and Internet for something like 30 euros a month. I turned green with envy when I discovered that. THAT is a price that I think is reasonable.
Udo 15y ago
The weak economy is hitting Americans where they spend a lot of their free time: at the TV set. While the economy might be the trigger that drives people over the edge to unsubscribe, I actually believe that a large number of them was disenfranchised with TV programming before that. When it comes to entertainment, we have exactly three categories: reality TV, sports events, and series that are designed to be huge blockbusters. Personally, my biggest beef with this is the series part (I don't watch reality TV or sports at all), because we're only ever seeing the most dumbed-down shit that is designed from the ground up for marketability. Only rarely does that procedure produce a great show, and when it does, it's by pure accident. As a result, we get fiction programming where Warehouse 13 is considered "edgy sci-fi TV", when it fact it is neither edgy nor scifi at all.
- mw63214 15y ago
  I know this is very subjective, but in my opinion, the best sci-fi shows are those that manage to blur the lines between fiction and reality (fringe, alphas, not-so-much-but-sort-of warehouse 13).
- onemoreact 15y ago
  I could not agree more. I have a FIOS and a huge HDTV, in the living room and I end up watching one TV show reguarlly and a few movies. The last time I spent a significant amount of time in front of the TV was the Olympics whose coverage was so bad I ended up fast forwarding though most of it. The only advantage of cable is they live HDTV programming is less compressed than most streaming options. Yet, for some reason even their Video on Demand option is more compressed than live tv even though they have a full fiber network. As to programming, I used to watch a fair amount of edutainment like NOVA but even that has been dumbed down to meaningless drivel. I can still get into a good nature show in HDTV, but mostly they are just Steve Erwin style psudo reality TV designed to maximize the number of teeth shown per minute. PS: If you have not seen it "How It’s Made" is still fairly interesting.
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    As for the Olympics, on my basic cable television service (held due to Comcast pricing issues), the one stream of broadcasting that was not utter crap was one of the secondaries that was on... CNBC or something like that. They showed particularly women's curling in pretty much complete broadcasts, except for commercials. I'm neither a sports fan nor a curling aficionado (or, I wasn't), but I quite enjoyed watching those games and following the Canadian women's team on their way to victory. People are bailing on cable television (and new television in general) because the programming is utter crap. And then the companies sit on the good, if older, stuff and move it ever further up in the premium levels. I'd actually watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation", but it's been moved to price levels I won't pay for. The channel perennially re-running "West Wing" was recently bumped from my service (despite Comcast's supposed agreement to hold the status quo until 2013). Now, "The Next Generation" is on Netflix. So, screw you, cable TV. (Just wish I had a better choice for my Internet connectivity.)
- latj 15y ago
  Agreed. This is a silly story "bla bla kids living at home". People are just deciding that cable isnt worth the cost anymore.
Triumvark 15y ago
Cable cutting numbers are so low as to be almost unmeasurable. So why are Hulu and Netflix hamstrung by content creators as a threat to revenue again?
- ams6110 15y ago
  I cut my cable back to the "basic" TV level last year (which is local stations plus a handful of others). I only kept it at all because it is cheaper to get internet + basic TV than it is to have internet alone (Comcast). I do miss having the ESPNs but nothing else really. We have Netflix and can get ESPN 360 on the Xbox so that's a bit of a consolation.
- jerf 15y ago
  Because everybody can clearly read the trendlines. Including the executives mentioned in the article, who won't say it in public, but they know what's going on.
ck2 15y ago
And my internet cost has skyrocketed because of it (mostly because there's no competition).
rglover 15y ago
If cable networks and MSOs were smart, they'd start developing their own "Netflix" style operation. Build MSO-specific web apps that make it easy to do two things: 1.) Watch live network streams as if I had a box hooked up to my TV and 2.) Give users access to a VOD library (just like Netflix) for each network. There are PLENTY of downsides but unfortunately, these companies need to realize that the old model doesn't work and is only going to continue to die off. Want to keep your subscribers? Move to the web. Now. Worry about the details later.
- iamdave 15y ago
  these companies need to realize that the old model doesn't work You give them entirely too much credit, the cable tv industry is joined at the hip to news networks and inextricably to movie producers for broadcast rights. And what do we know about the news industry and the movie industry? Both are in a state of flux because instead of chasing down a new method of distribution, they held on to increasingly irrelevant business models and now they're paying for it. <CAVEAT EMPTOR>If Time Warner suddenly comes out with a portable VOD program, instead of locking me down to my living room - and produces one that actually compels me to keep using it, and doesn't expect me to have both home service and VOD as an extra premium, I will gladly eat my words. As it stands, I doubt that will happen, and I doubt it will happen in a cost effective way. It's a beautiful idea, honestly. If they made a VOD service where you paid one flat fee that isn't a ridiculous cost for online video, I'd reckon the demand would easily make up the difference in costs leasing/selling boxes. </CAVEAT EMPTOR> edit for clarity: With the news this is more talking to print news.
  - rglover 15y ago
    You make a good point about the interconnectivity of the news/film industries to broadcasting, but we've reached a point where people are going to need to let go and embrace what's next. The fear is that of uncertainty and the behavior of consumers but in all actuality, people love television and they'll still pay to watch it. If they have to lower costs, so be it. The upside? You'll probably reach and RETAIN more customers because of the lower costs.
shawnee_ 15y ago
Television content distribution has historically been push model marketing. One problem was that nobody ever really "knew" with any measurable degree of accuracy how many people were actually watching any given show. Nielsen ratings (and I actually received $5 and the survey in the mail 10 years ago, when I was a televisionless University student), as hyped as they are, were more or less guesstimates totally dependant upon people telling them exactly what they're watching and when. Even the demographics can get somewhat skewed -- educated people would be more likely to return the survey than non. It makes more sense that this new emerging Internet-based distribution model would be more to the liking of those who are reliant upon an advertising-based revenue model for the simple fact that they can have more accurate numbers showing them how many viewers they have. But instead they whine and complain that they're losing money on a system that was never really optimized for their core purpose.
evilduck 15y ago
My household just cancelled our basic satellite service last week because of AppleTV+iTunes+Netflix. Our reasoning was this: Netflix lets us have the "background noise" programs that we don't really care about for $8/mo and it has a big enough catalog that it's worth it. We can purchase everything else from iTunes and at our rate of "new show consumption", the $60/mo is better spent being put towards iTunes purchases where it's ad-free, on demand, and able to be moved to devices. For TV shows, that's about 15-20 episodes a month purchased without affecting our previous budget. In practice, we don't watch half that many new shows so we'll be saving around $30/month and building a catalog of content that we semi-own where the value increases the longer we use it. Cable/Sat services don't build on themselves like that. Plus, the AppleTV runs at 6 watts where the satellite receiver ran at 10x that, we might even see a lower electric bill. Households that live for watching TV aren't going to be swayed that easily, but they're easily spending twice as much too.
- BigZaphod 15y ago
  We did this over 2 years ago. Our 2.5yo son is (so far) growing up with very little exposure to television commercials (he almost never sees them unless we are watching something on Hulu), and we consider that a good thing. Not only that, since it's all on-demand, he can choose whatever fits his mood during the time he's allowed to watch stuff. And because the media is "always available", I think he's developing a kind of acceptance that it's okay to stop watching when he's bored because the content availability is not constrained to "now." In other words, it's far easier for him to leave a show midway when it's time for bed or something because he knows he can just pick it up later and continue some other day. This is a decidedly different experience than growing up with scheduled TV pre-DVR where every minute was precious and missing anything was a "big deal."
  - evilduck 15y ago
    Our 7 month old son also played a part in the decision. I'd rather him develop a habit of filling the majority of his idle time with less mentally and physically passive activities than television. Not that he can't ever watch TV, but I hope that we can find something else more entertaining together.
ww520 15y ago
www.topchan.tv is developed for people to seek alternative video content. Below are some examples of video not on the traditional TV. The Game channel http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/10 http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/10 has game play recordings and streaming. The VLOG channel http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/12 http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/12 has video blogs from people on Youtube. The TED channel http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/264 http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/264 has the TED presentations.
adestefan 15y ago
There's still one thing missing from the non-cable services: live sports.
- jimbokun 15y ago
  But many of the sport web sites directly offer streaming over the internet. I'm curious, actually, about the quality of soccer streaming channels available in the U.S.? I see there's the Fox soccer channel internet subscription, but is the quality any good? HD streaming? Other U.S. options?
  - corin_ 15y ago
    I was actually looking just the other day to see what streaming options MLS had, and failed to find anything that would work purely online, without some sort of actual TV provider in America. Are you wanting to know about MLS, or about foreign and international leagues/tournaments as well? (I don't have answers right now, but will look into the Fox subscription you mentioned and see how it is.)
    - jimbokun 15y ago
      Mostly interested in foreign leagues.
      - corin_ 15y ago
        Watching a live game on it now, interface seems pretty nice. Quality is bad for me, most likely since I have to tunnel through a US server to avoid the geo-location ban, so I can't really comment on how the picture would be for you. But you can get a 7 day free trial, so no harm to try it out and see how you like it.
- krschultz 15y ago
  If only I could just pay for football Sundays, March Madness, and the NBA playoffs. My TV sits idle the rest of the time.
JoeAltmaier 15y ago
Is it too much to hope that Americans are getting outside more?
- technoslut 15y ago
  No, we're getting fatter and lazier. If we're getting outside it's only to drive to our local fast food restaurant.
hippich 15y ago
Work in office during day, and work on personal projects during evenings. Do not have TV for like.... a lot of years. Found discount movie theater nearby and go there over weekends sometimes with my wife (she also totally busy during week). You know what? When you go to movie theater just a few times per month - you really enjoy the show! And nice restaurant after is a great culmination =) Treat yourself, not bloat!
akeck 15y ago
We used to do cable service plus local video rental, because between spotty reception and the low resolution of broadcast TV, the experience wasn't that great. We would make the pilgrimage to the video store multiple times a week for everything else. We generally watch only the majors (ABC, etc.) and PBS affiliates, so the large channel selection of cable doesn't add much value. We made a decent antenna and now do over-the-air HDTV for our appointment viewing. It's gorgeous and free. We use Netflix DVD/streaming to get the rest of the content we watch. Netflix+Internet+OTA fulfills our needs at a much lower price point and much greater flexibility. The cable model needs improve to compete. It would be compelling for me with things like per-channel a la carte pricing and price parity between HD and SD service. The one thing I find compelling about the cable model today that's been hard for me to do personally is digital recording. For OTA HD recording, one either has to be able to afford TIVO or spend a significant amount of time and some money hand-building a DVR system.

32 points by selamattidur 15y ago

What drove me to cut was this: the content is getting steadily worse, bandwidth is becoming exponentially cheaper for providers, and yet - the price just kept going up. I would expect to pay less YOY instead! My in-laws subscribe to a cable service in France called "Neuf", that gives them phone, television, and Internet for something like 30 euros a month. I turned green with envy when I discovered that. THAT is a price that I think is reasonable.

Udo 15y ago

The weak economy is hitting Americans where they spend a lot of their free time: at the TV set. While the economy might be the trigger that drives people over the edge to unsubscribe, I actually believe that a large number of them was disenfranchised with TV programming before that. When it comes to entertainment, we have exactly three categories: reality TV, sports events, and series that are designed to be huge blockbusters. Personally, my biggest beef with this is the series part (I don't watch reality TV or sports at all), because we're only ever seeing the most dumbed-down shit that is designed from the ground up for marketability. Only rarely does that procedure produce a great show, and when it does, it's by pure accident. As a result, we get fiction programming where Warehouse 13 is considered "edgy sci-fi TV", when it fact it is neither edgy nor scifi at all.

mw63214 15y ago
I know this is very subjective, but in my opinion, the best sci-fi shows are those that manage to blur the lines between fiction and reality (fringe, alphas, not-so-much-but-sort-of warehouse 13).
onemoreact 15y ago
I could not agree more. I have a FIOS and a huge HDTV, in the living room and I end up watching one TV show reguarlly and a few movies. The last time I spent a significant amount of time in front of the TV was the Olympics whose coverage was so bad I ended up fast forwarding though most of it. The only advantage of cable is they live HDTV programming is less compressed than most streaming options. Yet, for some reason even their Video on Demand option is more compressed than live tv even though they have a full fiber network. As to programming, I used to watch a fair amount of edutainment like NOVA but even that has been dumbed down to meaningless drivel. I can still get into a good nature show in HDTV, but mostly they are just Steve Erwin style psudo reality TV designed to maximize the number of teeth shown per minute. PS: If you have not seen it "How It’s Made" is still fairly interesting.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  As for the Olympics, on my basic cable television service (held due to Comcast pricing issues), the one stream of broadcasting that was not utter crap was one of the secondaries that was on... CNBC or something like that. They showed particularly women's curling in pretty much complete broadcasts, except for commercials. I'm neither a sports fan nor a curling aficionado (or, I wasn't), but I quite enjoyed watching those games and following the Canadian women's team on their way to victory. People are bailing on cable television (and new television in general) because the programming is utter crap. And then the companies sit on the good, if older, stuff and move it ever further up in the premium levels. I'd actually watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation", but it's been moved to price levels I won't pay for. The channel perennially re-running "West Wing" was recently bumped from my service (despite Comcast's supposed agreement to hold the status quo until 2013). Now, "The Next Generation" is on Netflix. So, screw you, cable TV. (Just wish I had a better choice for my Internet connectivity.)
latj 15y ago
Agreed. This is a silly story "bla bla kids living at home". People are just deciding that cable isnt worth the cost anymore.

Triumvark 15y ago

Cable cutting numbers are so low as to be almost unmeasurable. So why are Hulu and Netflix hamstrung by content creators as a threat to revenue again?

ams6110 15y ago
I cut my cable back to the "basic" TV level last year (which is local stations plus a handful of others). I only kept it at all because it is cheaper to get internet + basic TV than it is to have internet alone (Comcast). I do miss having the ESPNs but nothing else really. We have Netflix and can get ESPN 360 on the Xbox so that's a bit of a consolation.
jerf 15y ago
Because everybody can clearly read the trendlines. Including the executives mentioned in the article, who won't say it in public, but they know what's going on.

ck2 15y ago

And my internet cost has skyrocketed because of it (mostly because there's no competition).

rglover 15y ago

If cable networks and MSOs were smart, they'd start developing their own "Netflix" style operation. Build MSO-specific web apps that make it easy to do two things: 1.) Watch live network streams as if I had a box hooked up to my TV and 2.) Give users access to a VOD library (just like Netflix) for each network. There are PLENTY of downsides but unfortunately, these companies need to realize that the old model doesn't work and is only going to continue to die off. Want to keep your subscribers? Move to the web. Now. Worry about the details later.

iamdave 15y ago
these companies need to realize that the old model doesn't work You give them entirely too much credit, the cable tv industry is joined at the hip to news networks and inextricably to movie producers for broadcast rights. And what do we know about the news industry and the movie industry? Both are in a state of flux because instead of chasing down a new method of distribution, they held on to increasingly irrelevant business models and now they're paying for it. <CAVEAT EMPTOR>If Time Warner suddenly comes out with a portable VOD program, instead of locking me down to my living room - and produces one that actually compels me to keep using it, and doesn't expect me to have both home service and VOD as an extra premium, I will gladly eat my words. As it stands, I doubt that will happen, and I doubt it will happen in a cost effective way. It's a beautiful idea, honestly. If they made a VOD service where you paid one flat fee that isn't a ridiculous cost for online video, I'd reckon the demand would easily make up the difference in costs leasing/selling boxes. </CAVEAT EMPTOR> edit for clarity: With the news this is more talking to print news.
- rglover 15y ago
  You make a good point about the interconnectivity of the news/film industries to broadcasting, but we've reached a point where people are going to need to let go and embrace what's next. The fear is that of uncertainty and the behavior of consumers but in all actuality, people love television and they'll still pay to watch it. If they have to lower costs, so be it. The upside? You'll probably reach and RETAIN more customers because of the lower costs.

shawnee_ 15y ago

Television content distribution has historically been push model marketing. One problem was that nobody ever really "knew" with any measurable degree of accuracy how many people were actually watching any given show. Nielsen ratings (and I actually received $5 and the survey in the mail 10 years ago, when I was a televisionless University student), as hyped as they are, were more or less guesstimates totally dependant upon people telling them exactly what they're watching and when. Even the demographics can get somewhat skewed -- educated people would be more likely to return the survey than non. It makes more sense that this new emerging Internet-based distribution model would be more to the liking of those who are reliant upon an advertising-based revenue model for the simple fact that they can have more accurate numbers showing them how many viewers they have. But instead they whine and complain that they're losing money on a system that was never really optimized for their core purpose.

evilduck 15y ago

My household just cancelled our basic satellite service last week because of AppleTV+iTunes+Netflix. Our reasoning was this: Netflix lets us have the "background noise" programs that we don't really care about for $8/mo and it has a big enough catalog that it's worth it. We can purchase everything else from iTunes and at our rate of "new show consumption", the $60/mo is better spent being put towards iTunes purchases where it's ad-free, on demand, and able to be moved to devices. For TV shows, that's about 15-20 episodes a month purchased without affecting our previous budget. In practice, we don't watch half that many new shows so we'll be saving around $30/month and building a catalog of content that we semi-own where the value increases the longer we use it. Cable/Sat services don't build on themselves like that. Plus, the AppleTV runs at 6 watts where the satellite receiver ran at 10x that, we might even see a lower electric bill. Households that live for watching TV aren't going to be swayed that easily, but they're easily spending twice as much too.

BigZaphod 15y ago
We did this over 2 years ago. Our 2.5yo son is (so far) growing up with very little exposure to television commercials (he almost never sees them unless we are watching something on Hulu), and we consider that a good thing. Not only that, since it's all on-demand, he can choose whatever fits his mood during the time he's allowed to watch stuff. And because the media is "always available", I think he's developing a kind of acceptance that it's okay to stop watching when he's bored because the content availability is not constrained to "now." In other words, it's far easier for him to leave a show midway when it's time for bed or something because he knows he can just pick it up later and continue some other day. This is a decidedly different experience than growing up with scheduled TV pre-DVR where every minute was precious and missing anything was a "big deal."
- evilduck 15y ago
  Our 7 month old son also played a part in the decision. I'd rather him develop a habit of filling the majority of his idle time with less mentally and physically passive activities than television. Not that he can't ever watch TV, but I hope that we can find something else more entertaining together.

ww520 15y ago

www.topchan.tv is developed for people to seek alternative video content. Below are some examples of video not on the traditional TV. The Game channel http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/10 http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/10 has game play recordings and streaming. The VLOG channel http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/12 http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/12 has video blogs from people on Youtube. The TED channel http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/264 http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/264 has the TED presentations.

adestefan 15y ago

There's still one thing missing from the non-cable services: live sports.

jimbokun 15y ago
But many of the sport web sites directly offer streaming over the internet. I'm curious, actually, about the quality of soccer streaming channels available in the U.S.? I see there's the Fox soccer channel internet subscription, but is the quality any good? HD streaming? Other U.S. options?
- corin_ 15y ago
  I was actually looking just the other day to see what streaming options MLS had, and failed to find anything that would work purely online, without some sort of actual TV provider in America. Are you wanting to know about MLS, or about foreign and international leagues/tournaments as well? (I don't have answers right now, but will look into the Fox subscription you mentioned and see how it is.)
  - jimbokun 15y ago
    Mostly interested in foreign leagues.
    - corin_ 15y ago
      Watching a live game on it now, interface seems pretty nice. Quality is bad for me, most likely since I have to tunnel through a US server to avoid the geo-location ban, so I can't really comment on how the picture would be for you. But you can get a 7 day free trial, so no harm to try it out and see how you like it.
krschultz 15y ago
If only I could just pay for football Sundays, March Madness, and the NBA playoffs. My TV sits idle the rest of the time.

JoeAltmaier 15y ago

Is it too much to hope that Americans are getting outside more?

technoslut 15y ago
No, we're getting fatter and lazier. If we're getting outside it's only to drive to our local fast food restaurant.

hippich 15y ago

Work in office during day, and work on personal projects during evenings. Do not have TV for like.... a lot of years. Found discount movie theater nearby and go there over weekends sometimes with my wife (she also totally busy during week). You know what? When you go to movie theater just a few times per month - you really enjoy the show! And nice restaurant after is a great culmination =) Treat yourself, not bloat!

akeck 15y ago

We used to do cable service plus local video rental, because between spotty reception and the low resolution of broadcast TV, the experience wasn't that great. We would make the pilgrimage to the video store multiple times a week for everything else. We generally watch only the majors (ABC, etc.) and PBS affiliates, so the large channel selection of cable doesn't add much value. We made a decent antenna and now do over-the-air HDTV for our appointment viewing. It's gorgeous and free. We use Netflix DVD/streaming to get the rest of the content we watch. Netflix+Internet+OTA fulfills our needs at a much lower price point and much greater flexibility. The cable model needs improve to compete. It would be compelling for me with things like per-channel a la carte pricing and price parity between HD and SD service. The one thing I find compelling about the cable model today that's been hard for me to do personally is digital recording. For OTA HD recording, one either has to be able to afford TIVO or spend a significant amount of time and some money hand-building a DVR system.