With more and more consumers cutting the cord and ditching their cable providers, these companies have to make up the lost revenue somehow. That apparently means increasing costs elsewhere, like your broadband. [More]
cord cutting
The NASA Channel App On Roku Doesn’t Work And It Isn’t From NASA
By 8.21.17
Your best bet to see today’s total eclipse if you live in an area where it isn’t visible is to stream NASA’s cross-country broadcast. It’s available from some cable providers and to stream on your computer, but what if you want it on your TV screen and you’re a cord-cutter? Roku users might download a NASA channel available in their channel store, but they’re in for a bad experience if they do. [More]
Today In Streaming TV: Charter Tests Skinny Bundle, CenturyLink Launches $45 Package
By 6.30.17
The trend continues: As consumers increasingly cut the cord and back away from traditional pay-TV, they still want to watch content. And rather than let all the money go to Hulu, PlayStation Vue, and YouTube, cable and satellite companies are cautiously wading into the all-online world. This week, CenturyLink and possibly Charter are joining the fray. [More]
Why Does Hulu Drive More Cord-Cutting Than Netflix Or Amazon Prime?
By 6.23.17
When people think of subscription streaming video services, Hulu is usually part of the discussion but is often treated as secondary to Netflix or Amazon Prime. Yet, despite this third-place image of Hulu, it may be the streaming service that is most likely to contribute to people cutting the cord with their cable provider. [More]
Cord-Cutting Will Only Continue As Cable Prices Rise
By 6.14.17 — Updated: 6.18.17
Nearly half of Americans with pay-TV packages are nearing the point of saying goodbye to traditional cable, including those few are actually satisfied with their service. Why? Because their cable bills just keep going up. [More]
Discovery CEO: Cable TV Skinny Bundles Really Just “Overstuffed Turkeys”
By 5.9.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
A few years ago, the pay-TV industry started trying to placate customers fed up with paying for channels they don’t watch by introducing so-called “skinny bundles” — fewer channels for less money. But the CEO of one cable TV colossus says these TV packages are still too bloated. [More]
Streaming Subscription Audience Has Surpassed Pay-TV Subscribers In U.S., Claims Survey
By 3.8.17
It’s been about two years since America’s major cable companies started seeing their internet service customers outnumber their pay-TV subscribers, and now a new survey claims that streaming video subscriptions in the U.S. have overtaken cable and satellite subscriptions. [More]
Congressional Committee Officially Asks FCC To Kill Set-Top Box Reform
By 1.27.17
If you had any hope of being able to get your cable box from someone other than your cable company (or paying Tivo’s ridiculously high prices and subscription fees), you should probably just throw that hope into the garbage bin. One Congressional committee — the head of which has been heavily funded by the pay-TV and broadcast industries — has officially called on new FCC Chair Ajit Pai to scuttle the agency’s stalled efforts to make set-top boxes better and more affordable. [More]
If Cord-Cutters All Cut Cable, Where Do The Networks Go?
By 12.29.16
The so-called “golden age of TV” may only be just now dawning for viewers, completely inundated with high-quality shows on every screen we own, but it’s more of a turbulent era for the companies that make our shows. With “cable TV” still morphing into “on-demand content anywhere,” programmers and distribution companies are struggling to adapt — and the smallest content companies may be the ones most likely to collapse or sell out as cord-cutters continue changing their habits. [More]
AT&T CEO: Letting Us Buy Time Warner Will “Disrupt” TV, Be “Good For Consumers”
By 12.7.16
When AT&T announced in October that it would spend $85 billion to acquire Time Warner, the plan was met with strong headwinds right out of the gate. A surprisingly broad array of lawmakers, from both sides of the political aisle, immediately voiced concerns. Among the concerned parties? The Senate Judiciary Committee, which today held a hearing examining the impact on competition, and potential antitrust concerns, the merger could raise. [More]
Is TV Sports Getting So Expensive That Customers Are Finally Cutting The Cord?
By 12.5.16
At this point, it’s a hoary old saw that sports networks and broadcasts of live sporting events are one of the main reasons your pay-TV bills continue to rise. We all kind of “know” that sports are expensive, and that the costs come through to everyone else… but as millions of dollars in charges and fees become billions, are consumers and viewers going to stick around? [More]
Analyst: How Much Does Comcast Lose If You Cut The Cord? Less Than $6 A Month
By 12.1.16 — Updated: 12.2.16
With services like DirecTV Now, Dish’s Sling TV, and PlayStation Vue proliferating everywhere, it seems as if finally the age of the cord-cutter is going mainstream. A subscriber who cuts out their pay-TV service could see their bill drop by $50 or $100 in a month — but does that mean your cable company is losing that much revenue from you? One major industry analyst thinks it’s not even close. [More]
Many Time Warner Cable TV Customers Not Sticking Around With Charter
By 11.8.16
It’s the time of year when all publicly-traded companies announce their last quarter’s results. And over in Charter-land, something’s not looking so good: video subscribers are down, but it’s not a universal cord-cutting trend across the board. Instead, the loss is almost entirely concentrated in Time Warner Cable markets. [More]
Google Starts Shaping Up “Unplugged,” Its YouTube-Based Pay-TV Service
By 10.19.16
People looking to cut the cable TV cord will be getting more options in the months to come, with AT&T still planning to launch its DirecTV Now streaming service by year’s end, and news that Google is signing up broadcasters for the YouTube-based live-TV offering it hopes to launch in early 2017. [More]
How Much Does Cord-Cutting Actually Cost Big Cable?
By 9.30.16
Cord-cutting is, as we know, a real trend. It’s not what the majority of viewers do — huge numbers of consumers subscribe to cable, satellite, or fiber TV service — but it’s definitely on the rise. And one new analysis thinks the cable industry could be losing at least $1 billion a year in revenue from customers who say “so long.” [More]
Survey Says: Your Bills Are Going Up, But 82% Of Households Still Pay For Cable
By 9.27.16
It may seem like the golden age of cable and the age of internet TV is upon us, but when you get right down to it, a whole lot of households still subscribe to monthly pay-TV. That said, the latest edition of an annual survey does indeed find that both cable prices and cord-cutting are on the rise — a completely coincidental pair of facts, we’re sure. [More]
AT&T CEO Says DirecTV Standalone Streaming Service Will Launch By End Of 2016
By 9.21.16
Six months ago, AT&T announced it would launch DirecTV Now, a standalone streaming service to compete with PlayStation Vue and Dish’s Sling TV. Aside from a handful of content partnership announcements, details about DirecTV Now continue to be scarce, but at least we have a timeframe for its launch. [More]
Comcast Excited To Have Lost 4,000 TV Subscribers This Spring
By 7.27.16
Comcast is just so happy this morning, you guys! Their second quarter results are out and they are thrilled, just thrilled, to announce that they lost 4,000 TV subscribers in the last three months. [More]
