Nielsen: 1 in 8 households have cancelled cable in last 2 years

[PTBoardOp94]

A blog post from Nielsen published today shows the trend: Only 46% of households purchased the cable bundle last month, down 12.3% from just two years ago

This is not being offset by broadcast reception of television, which is also declining.

Broadcast bounceback: New TV sports rights deals provide fans with free access to local games | Nielsen

As pro sports teams seek to reach bigger TV audiences, some are embracing free, over-the-air broadcasting options.

www.nielsen.com

The report also includes the putrid viewership data for the Phoenix Mercury WNBA team: Only 1418 viewers last year on Bally Sports Arizona. This year on AZ Family Sports (an OTA service) the viewership was up significantly, to a still paltry 8193.

 

[inari]

Cable TV is in a doom loop.

Prices are high from high retrans and licensing fees -> customers cancel and move to streaming -> channels demand more retrans and licensing fees to maintain their growing revenue numbers to Wall Street - > More customers cancel.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Cable TV is in a doom loop.

Prices are high from high retrans and licensing fees -> customers cancel and move to streaming -> channels demand more retrans and licensing fees to maintain their growing revenue numbers to Wall Street - > More customers cancel.

Another factor newer TV's on sale often have streaming apps and not ones that pick up OTA signals.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Another factor newer TV's on sale often have streaming apps and not ones that pick up OTA signals.

it's just a monitor if it doesn't have an OTA tuner

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I havent had cable tv since 2011 and with a few exceptions, havent had OTA TV in most of that time either.. didnt leave in places where i couldve gotten reception or wouldve had to have some very very elaborate rooftop set up and didnt wanna go through that rigamaroll

 

[crainbebo]

I bet half of those 1,418 viewers were from TVs in Phoenix bars and restaurants 😄
Cable TV has lost its grace...with endless repeats of Two and a Half Men, My 600-Lb Life, the 864th 'ghost'-type show, the 492nd 'Alaska' reality show, those guys who still haven't found Bigfoot yet, other exploitation reality shows, too many episodes of Steve Harvey's Family Feud daily on GSN, movies with 72 minutes of commercials and less than the running time of the MOVIE...oh, and 5,786,183 commercials per day. With 3,954,211 of those being Liberty Liberty Liberty (someone please fire that dumb Doug and his emu now...)
Maybe I'm exaggerating the number of commercials.

Streaming has taken over from cable and people can just binge-watch all day if they want. Others, especially 65+, are cutting to just OTA, where MeTV and Antenna TV give them the entertainment that they want.

The days of Bozo and the Cubs on WGN, the Braves and Night Tracks on TBS, classic movies on TNT, and actual animal documentaries on Discovery are long, LONG gone.

The only cable networks I'd bother keeping nowadays are ESPN/ESPN2, FS1, TCM, and Root Sports. I don't need the rest.

 

[TheBigA]

Another thread observed the decline of local and regional cable news channels, specifically New England Cable News. This is related to the decline of cable subscriptions. You can't fund a 24/7 local news channel if a chunk of the money used to pay for it disappears. The question you need to consider is how much would you pay for local news? Start thinking about it, because if audience for linear broadcast TV goes away, so does your local news coverage.

 

[Mikey Radio]

Another factor newer TV's on sale often have streaming apps and not ones that pick up OTA signals.

it's just a monitor if it doesn't have an OTA tuner

There seems to be some misunderstanding here as it pertains to "Smart TVs" that have been on the market for the past number of years. Most if not all Smart TVs do indeed have OTA tuners built into them, but they can also connect to the internet usually via WiFi and come loaded with a number of apps, or they'll allow you to download apps onto them (YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc.) which will allow you to use the actual TV to stream content, rather than having to use an external device like a laptop for streaming, which would then need to be connected to the TV. Some Smart TVs come pre-loaded with Amazon Fire or similar which will allow them to connect to the internet and stream a number of free to air movies, TV shows, music channels and the like, though the free ones are usually second or third tier programming, not channels you'd get via a pay TV service like Comcast or Dish... But again, those Smart TVs normally always contain an OTA tuner as well.

 

[Mikey Radio]

Another thread observed the decline of local and regional cable news channels, specifically New England Cable News. This is related to the decline of cable subscriptions. You can't fund a 24/7 local news channel if a chunk of the money used to pay for it disappears. The question you need to consider is how much would you pay for local news? Start thinking about it, because if audience for linear broadcast TV goes away, so does your local news coverage.

I'm surprised more local and small market broadcast TV stations haven't gone the way of terrestrial radio and reduced staff or even folded more than they have. Some small market stations with local news ditched proper cameramen some time ago in favor of Go Pro cameras and smart phones for getting shots and doing interviews, and more of their staff pull multiple duties - Those who are on-air in the studio during a newscast might then go out into the field and get reports between newscasts. Others may host the news, but also be the ones to update the website and do their social media posts.

Where my parents live, I believe 3 stations began pooling resources for at least 1 daily newscast which is now a regional or state-wide news. The 3 stations send news items and content they believe would be impactful or interesting to viewers of all those stations, the staff at one will "anchor" those newscasts and all 3 stations broadcast it to their viewers.

 

[CTListener]

Another thread observed the decline of local and regional cable news channels, specifically New England Cable News. This is related to the decline of cable subscriptions. You can't fund a 24/7 local news channel if a chunk of the money used to pay for it disappears. The question you need to consider is how much would you pay for local news? Start thinking about it, because if audience for linear broadcast TV goes away, so does your local news coverage.

How long can C-SPAN survive? It's funded by the cable industry and its linear channels are available only to cable subscribers. An app called C-SPAN Select recently was added to Xfinity Flex's suite of apps. It airs "Washington Journal" and House sessions live, but other programs are available only in highlight form or not at all, and while it offers a link to access the linear channels (C-SPAN, C-SPAN2 and C-SPAN3), if you click on that link you are told that your level of Xfinity service is insufficient for access. I have YouTube TV and tried entering that as my TV provider ... no dice, it's not cable.

So at some point does cable defund C-SPAN and shift into pure survival mode?

 

[TheBigA]

So at some point does cable defund C-SPAN and shift into pure survival mode?

I could see a case for YouTube taking over C-SPAN at some point.

 

[CTListener]

Comcast (Xfinity) is losing more than 5,000 cable customers a day.

Comcast Lost Over 490,000 TV Customers & Lost 18,000 Internet Customers in Q3 2023 as Cord Cutting is Speeding Up | Cord Cutters News

Cord cutting is continuing to hit Comcast hard as the company has recently lost both TV and internet customers. In Comcast’s 3rd quarter earnings report released this morning, the company reported it lost 490,000 video customer losses. That works out to almost 5,300 Subscribers Every Day. The...

cordcuttersnews.com

 

[Mikey Radio]

Comcast (Xfinity) is losing more than 5,000 cable customers a day.

Comcast Lost Over 490,000 TV Customers & Lost 18,000 Internet Customers in Q3 2023 as Cord Cutting is Speeding Up | Cord Cutters News

Cord cutting is continuing to hit Comcast hard as the company has recently lost both TV and internet customers. In Comcast’s 3rd quarter earnings report released this morning, the company reported it lost 490,000 video customer losses. That works out to almost 5,300 Subscribers Every Day. The...

cordcuttersnews.com

As I've mentioned before, about every 6 months we look to see what alternatives to Comcast are out there and consider the cost of switching vs. staying with them. Right now about the only thing keeping us with Comcast is the fact that our major league sports teams are with 2 different Bally Sports RSNs, and both are included in our Comcast subscription. If we paid for those 2 Bally channels on our own to stream, it'd cost us $40/month so having them with Comcast helps make it worth the $$. If Bally would file bankruptcy and go away or those 2 RSN channels would no longer be included in our Comcast package and we'd need to pay $$ to watch the sports teams we follow, that would likely cause us to kill Comcast and switch.

The last time I called Comcast to ask if we could reduce our bill in any way, they were very "matter of fact" and said "You pay for the basic package, then you pay for XYZ package that gives you channels like HGTV and Food Network (which we watch), and you pay for the sports package (which we watch). You must pay for the basic package, that is not an option - so your only options if you want to reduce costs would be to drop one or both of the optional packages you have - sports or the other one that gives you the Discovery family of networks". We actively watch both of those so our best option for now is to stay with Comcast, as for us it's still a bit cheaper than paying separately to stream all the channels we regularly watch.

 

[Weiserguy]

Comcast (Xfinity) is losing more than 5,000 cable customers a day.

Comcast Lost Over 490,000 TV Customers & Lost 18,000 Internet Customers in Q3 2023 as Cord Cutting is Speeding Up | Cord Cutters News

Cord cutting is continuing to hit Comcast hard as the company has recently lost both TV and internet customers. In Comcast’s 3rd quarter earnings report released this morning, the company reported it lost 490,000 video customer losses. That works out to almost 5,300 Subscribers Every Day. The...

cordcuttersnews.com

It's actually even worse. The part they don't talk about is the number of people who get their cable package through their homeowners association, where the HOA has cut a multiyear deal with the cable company and the residents pay for it through their monthly dues/fees/utility charge. There you can't get out of it, even if you never use it, as long as you continue owning your house/unit. If all owner/residents were allowed to unbundle and buy their TV a la carte from Xfinity/Cox/Dish/DirecTV or nobody, the cable (and satellite) provider sub numbers would tank.

 

[Don CT]

What’s hurting Comcast are companies that are selling direct fiber to the home.

 

[Mikey Radio]

What’s hurting Comcast are companies that are selling direct fiber to the home.

IMO what's hurting Comcast even more than that, is all the carriage fees they must pay to networks like ESPN (currently about $10/month per subscriber), Fox News ($2/month) and even local TV providers, regardless of whether or not their customers actually plan to watch any those channels. It's made CATV cost prohibitive for some, and simply unattractive to others who can use streaming services, the internet and OTA to get only the content they actually want to watch, sometimes at a fraction of what they'd pay Comcast for a more traditional subscription.

 

[Don CT]

IMO what's hurting Comcast even more than that, is all the carriage fees they must pay to networks like ESPN (currently about $10/month per subscriber), Fox News ($2/month) and even local TV providers, regardless of whether or not their customers actually plan to watch any those channels. It's made CATV cost prohibitive for some, and simply unattractive to others who can use streaming services, the internet and OTA to get only the content they actually want to watch, sometimes at a fraction of what they'd pay Comcast for a more traditional subscription.

Comcast saving grace was being an ISP. They knew people would need someone to use for internet to stream. Now they lost that market too.

 

[Larry]

IMO what's hurting Comcast even more than that, is all the carriage fees they must pay to networks like ESPN (currently about $10/month per subscriber), Fox News ($2/month) and even local TV providers,

One thing that hurts Comcast less than most other cable providers is they are in effect paying themselves carriage fees for NBC and NBC/Universal cable networks.

 

[Mikey Radio]

Comcast saving grace was being an ISP. They knew people would need someone to use for internet to stream. Now they lost that market too.

To be fair, my landline phone company (back when I had a landline I had service with AT&T) was offering internet service with decent speeds before Comcast ever came to the table with a serious offer to provide internet service, and that was more than 20 years ago - Back in the days when many were still using dialup (with all the great sound effects that went with it as it dialed up and connected). Our HOA has provided Google Webpass which uses stationary antennas, included in our monthly fees, for nearly 5 years now.

 

[crainbebo]

Another thread observed the decline of local and regional cable news channels, specifically New England Cable News. This is related to the decline of cable subscriptions. You can't fund a 24/7 local news channel if a chunk of the money used to pay for it disappears. The question you need to consider is how much would you pay for local news? Start thinking about it, because if audience for linear broadcast TV goes away, so does your local news coverage.

That's one reason why NWCN (Northwest Cable News) went away in 2017. TEGNA didn't want to keep the channel around, and more people were looking at news on social media.

I think C-SPAN will stay around until the nuclear apocalypse.