The writing was on the wall last quarter when Comcast’s dropping pay-TV subscriber base was only 6,000 more than its growing pool of broadband customers, but with today’s release of the latest subscriber numbers it’s official: Comcast now has fewer cable customers than it does Internet subscribers.
In fact, the difference is now quite substantial, with Comcast gaining 180,000 broadband customers and losing 69,000 pay-TV subscribers. That leaves the company with 22.31 million pay-TV subscribers, more than 200,000 short of the 22.55 million broadband users.
Interestingly, the company recently saw growth in subscribers signing up for bundles of at multiple services, with gains of 46,000 customers signing up for two products (i.e., cable and phone, or cable and Internet, etc.) and 42,000 new additions to customers getting all three Comcast products.
The company recently made a big play to retain these Triple Play customers in the Northeast, offering to bump up their Internet speeds at no extra cost. Customers without the three services have to pay more for the faster broadband.
The bundle numbers and TV numbers are completely misleading. My internet price went up by 33%, so I called and asked if they had a better deal. I could only get the price back down by agreeing to have a bundle with cable. They told me “You don’t even have to use the cable box, but we have to send you one.”
The cable box – which doesn’t have HDMI or even Component video, has been in its box for over a year. But this makes it *look like* I’m a subscriber to multiple products.