Cord-Cutting Is Accelerating

Megalith

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The rise of cord-cutting is no surprise in itself, but new data suggests that it is happening faster than expected.

…new data out Thursday from eMarketer shows that cord-cutting is accelerating, driven by a rapidly expanding panoply of digital video services. The number of pay-TV households will fall at an accelerating rate for at least the next four years, reaching a 1.4% decline in 2019, eMarketer estimates. By that year, eMarketer estimates that almost 23% of U.S. households won’t pay for traditional TV.
 
I cut over 10 years ago. Until those retards release me from paying for worthless shit like sports, reality TV, shopping, foreign and 24-7 news channels I'll never be back.
 
I cut over 10 years ago. Until those retards release me from paying for worthless shit like sports, reality TV, shopping, foreign and 24-7 news channels I'll never be back.

Sports are the only reason I'm still using cable.
 
Time-Warner recently released a Roku channel that is the same as if you were watching local broadcast TV. However, you need to authenticate as a Time-Warner customer.
 
Sports are the only reason I'm still using cable.

and ESPN is one of the most resistant broadcasters to cord-cutting. Verizon mentioned the idea of an a la carte subscription plan. This included breaking down ESPN's channels to what the consumer wanted instead of whole bundles. ESPN threatened to sue Verizon if they followed through with the plan. Haven't heard anything since.
 
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Like it has me :D
 
and ESPN is one of the most resistant broadcasters to cord-cutting. Verizon mentioned the idea of an a la carte subscription plan. This included breaking down ESPN's channels to what the consumer wanted instead of whole bundles. ESPN threatened to sue Verizon if they followed through with the plan. Haven't heard anything since.

They would lose a ton of money. Outside of live broadcast games they have nothing.
 
And the fact, that commercials are running at shorter and shorter intervals as time goes by doesn't help their situation. Also, commercials play at about the same time on all the channels, so you can try to change to other channels, and you have no way to escape them.
It makes you wonder just how stupid these people are. They apparently don't get the hint?
 
I dumped Comcast TV, earlier this year, in favor of SlingTV, Netflix, Hulu and OTA HD. Only thing I really miss is the Red Zone channel on Sunday.

Still have Comcast internet until something faster is available.
 
And the fact, that commercials are running at shorter and shorter intervals as time goes by doesn't help their situation. Also, commercials play at about the same time on all the channels, so you can try to change to other channels, and you have no way to escape them.
It makes you wonder just how stupid these people are. They apparently don't get the hint?

"You will consume entertainment the way I say you will consume it!!!"

-Comcast, famous last words.
 
I dumped Comcast TV, earlier this year, in favor of SlingTV, Netflix, Hulu and OTA HD. Only thing I really miss is the Red Zone channel on Sunday.

Still have Comcast internet until something faster is available.

This. Also, until they stop offering contracts to players for 150M+ for six years (wtf, they should be paying ground break scientists this kind of money), the costs of sports TV will never go down.
 
Starting to look like a classic financial bubble bursting. Slowed only by the lengths of the contracts involved.

Players get higher paying contracts from leagues who get higher payments from sports networks who get higher payments from cable companies who get higher payments from ... uh oh!
 
The real surprise is that in 2019, 77% of households will still be paying for cable. As Seinfeld would say, "Who are these people?"
 
I predict it will be a lot faster than this. By 2019 a revolution will be going on. My guess? At least 2-3 times this rate of loss by then.

Some of that revenue will come back, in the form of overpriced ala-carte channels. Amazon has just launched Starz and Showtime among others on their service for a monthly fee. It's ludicrously expensive really. If you were to take 20 channels you use at these prices guess what? You'd be paying as much or more than you paid before.

The real question is, by 2020, will ANY of the traditional networks still exist at all?
 
Give me standard network channels, FX, AMC, and ESPNU and I'm good. I only need a cord for three channels.
 
and ESPN is one of the most resistant broadcasters to cord-cutting. Verizon mentioned the idea of an a la carte subscription plan. This included breaking down ESPN's channels to what the consumer wanted instead of whole bundles. ESPN threatened to sue Verizon if they followed through with the plan. Haven't heard anything since.

Slingtv comes with ESPN. Is only $20/month before you add on more packages. So that is a nice trade off to cut the cable
 
and ESPN is one of the most resistant broadcasters to cord-cutting. Verizon mentioned the idea of an a la carte subscription plan. This included breaking down ESPN's channels to what the consumer wanted instead of whole bundles. ESPN threatened to sue Verizon if they followed through with the plan. Haven't heard anything since.

Good, they will be basically responsible for the demise of their own business. Their refusal to adapt is part of what is killing cable. People are tired of paying for crap they don't want.
 
And stupid shit like Suddenlink dropping Viacom channels probably isn't helping them.
 
I have been fighting with Comcast for the past couple of days, it seems that my bill went up over 40$ and if I want to get it back under 100 then I have to go to basic channels and internet. I went and bought an OTA HD antenna today and the quality is pretty good. combined with my Netflix, Roku and HTPC I think I will be happy.
 
fuck the fact that I have to subsidize sports so you guys can watch it without footing the entire cost. Fuck espn and that other useless bullshit that adds $6.10 to my monthly bill. the current cable model is fucked. good riddance to it.
 
I cut over 10 years ago. Until those retards release me from paying for worthless shit like sports, reality TV, shopping, foreign and 24-7 news channels I'll never be back.

Or lower the price.
I really hate paying for 150 channels when we only watch around 10. My biggest hate is for ESPN and their "must carry" requirement. The cable companies need to force these media monopolies to un bundle the channels, or they are going to keep loosing customer.

I would have dropped cable years ago, but that would lead to an unhappy wife, which would be even more expensive :(
 
And the fact, that commercials are running at shorter and shorter intervals as time goes by doesn't help their situation. Also, commercials play at about the same time on all the channels, so you can try to change to other channels, and you have no way to escape them.
It makes you wonder just how stupid these people are. They apparently don't get the hint?

That is what a DRV is for :) I usually only see a few frames of each commercial.
We rarely watch live TV, and when we do, we pause it for a while first, so we can skip over the commercials.
 
The real surprise is that in 2019, 77% of households will still be paying for cable. As Seinfeld would say, "Who are these people?"

I have no antenna reception, as I'm too far away and on the wrong side of the hill.
Didn't see to much of a problem with it 20 years ago, as cable TV was reasonably priced for the basic channels. Now I'm stuck, it's either cable, streaming, satellite.
Too many shows the family watches are not available on streaming, Satellite leaves me stuck with their DVR's, while at least with cable I can still use my own HTPC with a $2/month cable card, and then watch the shows on other devices in the house.
 
the thing that got me to cut the cord was tw seemed to raise my price every single fn month. sure it was typically a dollar there, 50 cents here but over years that added up. If I was adding something to my service then I would understand why it went up but I never did. One would think that after having them for 20+ years they would appreciate having loyal customers and give decent prices/services...
 
I got rid of TWC two years ago. Their picture quality and HD channel selection was horrid where I live. I've never been happier with TV service than I am with DTV. I love them and the pricing and service I get.
 
Should put together an infomerical about cord cutting and ESPN.

ESPN2 and ESPN Spanish (a steroid monkey and a cholo soccer player) are basically sitting there screaming abuse at us nerds for cord cutting and threatening to come beat us up and take our lunch money (or at least sic lawyers on us) if we don't come back into the fold.

Meanwhile, Vince Vaughn is running around in the back, screaming in panic as ESPN8.

Finally, Donald Gibb walks in as ESPN (the original), looks at all of them, and growls "Nerrrdsss".

Fade to black.
 
Time-Warner recently released a Roku channel that is the same as if you were watching local broadcast TV. However, you need to authenticate as a Time-Warner customer.

Correction. You need to authenticate as a TWC Cable TV subscriber. If you don't pay for their TV service the Roku app won't work. Just having TWC internet doesn't count.

Which, really, defeats the purpose. If I pay for TV why the fuck do I need a Roku app? lol
 
Even if the Cable TV business went away entirely, the cable companies would still have you by the short hairs simply because they also control the bandwidth to view all the services that the cord cutters use. Unless a new entity comes into the picture nationwide like Google, the cable companies still call the shots.
 
Even if the Cable TV business went away entirely, the cable companies would still have you by the short hairs simply because they also control the bandwidth to view all the services that the cord cutters use. Unless a new entity comes into the picture nationwide like Google, the cable companies still call the shots.

Yes, but they would then have nothing to differentiate them from any other high-bandwidth service provider.
 
I cut over 10 years ago. Until those retards release me from paying for worthless shit like sports, reality TV, shopping, foreign and 24-7 news channels I'll never be back.

I would love to know which high-value programs on cable you'd like to have all by itself?
 
I didn't cut the cord. I minimized it and moved to other services. I paid $80 or more a month for Dish. I watched 5 channels, TOPS. Wife watched a couple. Not worth it. By dropping to ~$20 a month - Hulu, Netflix, OTA, Amazon Prime (side effect of free shipping, so I wasn't in it for the streaming), and occasionally Sling, I get all the content I really want. I'm doing great.

There are a couple things I miss, but it's definitely not worth $60 more than what I'm paying now.

People say put the internet cost in there, too. No. I have the internet completely independent of my TV consumption. Regardless of any TV services, I would have my internet service exactly how it is (25/2 DSL). If I drop all TV, internet is still there. If I go with Dish, internet is still there.
 
I presently subscribe to Sling @ $20 for 22 channels, Netflix as an add-on from a friend, Amazon (bought for shipping and streaming service is a plus), CBS All Access for their top line shows like NCIS, etc) @ $6 bucks and Hulu Plus for instant play backs of popular shows (all channels) @ $8 bucks. So for $34 bucks and change, I get more than I can ever watch of shows I actually like. Try that with a single cable channel. :cool:
 
Because I do a lot of things that keep me busy outside the house and I'm a gamer I barely watch any TV at all.

Up until September I had a pay TV offering because the price was the same for the internet I wanted with or without the TV (because of corrupt telecommunications company logic). A new fibre ISP became available and I moved to them in September. I'm now saving $100/month and I honestly didn't notice a difference. I have Netflix and between that and Youtube I have more than enough content for me. I probably watch about 4 hours of content per week.
 
The real surprise is that in 2019, 77% of households will still be paying for cable. As Seinfeld would say, "Who are these people?"

People with kids. When they're jumping on my bed at 7am saturday morning, i don't have patience to browse netflix. I just want to turn on and have Nickelodeon instantly.

And also HD HBO.
 
What do you cord cutters do for DVR with an easy to use interface? We're super spoiled by Dish's Hopper, so unless there was something to easily replace that, I just can't see going away from that.
 
Honestly, I cut the cord years ago.

The amount of TV I was watching was next to zero.
The amount I watch now amounts to:

Doctor Who
The Flash
Supergirl
Agents of SHIELD

Only one of which doesn't stream and I'm MORE than okay with watching several days later.
 
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