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Television United States

US Pay-TV Subscriber Base Eroding At Record Pace (lightreading.com) 104

Posted by BeauHD from the hits-keep-coming dept.
According to MoffettNathanson, the U.S. pay-TV industry had its worst-ever third quarter after losing about 900,000 subscribers. "That poor result, the research firm added, left the total pay-TV industry shrinking at a record pace of -7.3%, widened from a year-ago decline of -5.9%," reports Light Reading. "It also left pay-TV penetration of occupied households (including vMVPDs) at just 54.8% -- a level last seen in 1989, five years before the debut of DirecTV." From the report: Drilling down on Q3 results, traditional pay-TV providers (cable, telco and satellite) shed 1.97 million subscribers, widened from a loss of 1.94 million in the year-ago quarter. Within that category, US cable lost 1.10 million video subs in Q3, versus a loss of -1.09 million in the year-ago period. Satellite operators (Dish Network and DirecTV) lost 667,000 subs in Q3, versus -567,000 in the year-ago quarter. Telco TV providers lost 198,000 video subs in the period, an improvement when compared to a year-ago loss of -250,000 subs.

vMVPDs, meanwhile, added 1.08 million in Q3, down from a year-ago gain of about 1.34 million. Despite those gains, vMVPDs recaptured only 21.7% of traditional pay-TV's subscriber losses in the period, according to MoffettNathanson. Meanwhile, YouTube TV continues to dominate the vMVPD category. MoffettNathanson estimates that YouTube TV added about 350,000 subs in Q3, extending its total to 7 million -- representing 40% of the vMVPD sector's 18 million subscriber total. "Based on our Q3 estimate, YouTube TV has now surpassed Dish Network [6.72 million satellite TV subs at the end of Q3] to become the country's fourth largest MVPD of any kind," Moffett noted. "At the current trajectory, YouTube TV should pass DirecTV for third place in less than a year."
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US Pay-TV Subscriber Base Eroding At Record Pace More

US Pay-TV Subscriber Base Eroding At Record Pace

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  • Making it difficult to subscribe. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @08:48PM (#64133061) Journal

    I am about to move to another state.

    If I can't get a CableCard working at my destination, then I won't be subscribing to any linear TV. I don't plan to use the cable company's sh***y boxes when I have a Tivo.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      I've been using CableCard with my HDPrime tuner and MythTV for years, but we're probably going to cancel soon, as we just don't watch much of anything on it anymore We use streaming for pretty much everything.

    • Have the *luxury* of choosing between Xfinity and Fios at our current place. I hadn't realized the cablecard was no longer 'required' to be supported when I called to switch to FIOS.

      Literally they now *require* you to physically take a cable box. And then will now charge you for your first cablecard for your Tivo. Can't wait to see if they also *require* it to be 'in use' for any diagnostic crapola.

      • CableCard is well on its way out. It's a solution designed around traditional multicasting of digital QAM streams, which has become an outdated method of delivering TV.

        Cable providers are all moving towards pure IP networks. So Cable TV will just be another application on top of that stack delivered by IP.

        Once that happens, cable boxes in general can start to be phased out. Customers can instead just load up the cable company's app on their now Smart TV. Or get a Roku/Firestick/whathaveyou if they still nee

        • CableCard was entirely created as a work around of the cable Co box monopoly, to allow 3rd party devices to be created. Unfortunately it didn't really create the vibrant 3rd party ecosystem that was hoped. (cable cos obviously weren't exactly going to help this). The cable TV distribution model still works better than streaming for many people, especially the less tech inclined. And I include gd 'sports network's in that. Invariably when a game is only avail on streaming and not TV it takes significant

        • Once that happens, cable boxes in general can start to be phased out.

          Yeah, right! Cable companies are going to give up their ridiculous profits on renting their boxes. Of course that will happen any moment now!

          • You miss the point. The cablecard was the literal *one* thing saving us from that. It was a defined standard Tivo, HomeRun etc could use to replace cable co hardware boxes.

            It didn't have the desired effect so it's being un-required. The only option will eventually become, again, their own proprietary boxes.

    • It will depend on who the cable operator is where you're moving.

      I had a CableCard setup back in the day, and then moved to Time Warner Cable land, where they encrypted every single channel they legally could, making the CableCard essentially useless for my setup.

      That was when I fired them and went streaming only.

      • I had a CableCard setup back in the day, and then moved to Time Warner Cable land, where they encrypted every single channel they legally could, making the CableCard essentially useless for my setup.

        Perhaps there was some other issue with using a CableCard, but they support encrypted channels.

        • They do, if you have software that is licensed for QAM encryption. Which, with PC hardware, the only one that was certified by Cable Labs was Windows Media Center, which Microsoft killed off. Which means my hardware was useless because they decided to encrypt everything they legally could in order to try to kill roll-your-own DVR.

          So fuck them, I fired them completely after that. I have zero patience for user-surly empire building.

  • Stop forcing channel bundling? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cruff ( 171569 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @08:51PM (#64133065)
    Maybe people would like a la carte pricing better, since they effectively do that with streaming service subscriptions.

    • Re:Stop forcing channel bundling? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Freedom Bug ( 86180 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @10:36PM (#64133243) Homepage

      Why do you think that would be useful? They'd just set the pricing so you're mostly indifferent to whether you have the bundle or individual channels. Most people want one, maybe two channels out of each bundle, so they'd set the price for an individual channel at about 2/3rds of the price of a bundle.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cruff ( 171569 )
        Maybe if they keep loosing subscribers they'll have incentive to change? Nah, greed rules the day.

        • Except that's not how it works and won't work in the future. Those two channels you might want to watch are owned by different companies. Those companies also own other channels that are part of their bundle. Cable TV is a lot like streaming in that way. Want CBS, you get paramount +. Want NBC, you get peacock. The same thing essentially happens with cable TV. Each bundle comes with all those networks' channels.

          Since each network owns X number of channels and has no interest in selling individual channels t

    • Re:Stop forcing channel bundling? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sjames ( 1099 ) on Friday January 05, 2024 @02:52AM (#64133557) Homepage Journal

      It's the overall cost that is killing the incumbents.

      When DirecTV raised prices AGAIN, I decided to re-evaluate. I now subscribe to a few streaming services and pay 25% of what DirecTV cost. Naturally, when I canceled, they sent the call to "retention", but the best offer they could come up with was still 3 times what the streaming costs. Even if I add the "liveTV" options to my streaming to get the sports channels, I still come out ahead, but since that adds a substantial amount and I don't watch those channels anyway, I didn't.

      As if to confirm that I made a good call, I saw that DirecTV was going UP another $10 for the next billing period and that at least one local station was missing since they were once again fighting over fees.

      I'm still getting "offers" to come back that look a bit more expensive than streaming and if I follow the asterisk (and get out a magnifying glass) I see that it's an "introductory" price for the first couple months then it shoots up.

      THAT is why the old Pay-TV services are hemorrhaging subscribers.

      • Re:Stop forcing channel bundling? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Deathlizard ( 115856 ) on Friday January 05, 2024 @10:37AM (#64134061) Homepage Journal

        Exactly. The minute these cable companies started letting networks bully them for retransmission fees was the day Pay TV died.

        Why should I pay $100 a month for the privilege of watching a 10 year old movie in 5 minute slices between 15 minutes of Camp LeJeune / Mesothelioma, Medicare, ASPCA and St. Jude commercials. The Jerry Lewis, Easter Seals and even PBS Telethons had more entertainment programming then some of these cable networks anymore.

        • You forgot the endless commercials from Big Pharma for diabetes medications with off-label weight loss usage. I see far more of that anything else these days.

    • Maybe people would like a la carte pricing better

      A la carte pricing will come to the same or more expensive. The whole reason bundles include those shitty horrible channels no one likes is because the cable company is incentivised to provide them. Remove that incentive and they pass on the bill to the customer.

    • Stop forcing us to pay a local broadcast fee and sports fee. Last time I looked at getting cable TV, those fees turned me off. I don't watch sports and have an antenna, I'm not about paying a bunch of money for those fees. Give me a no-sports and no-local channel option and I may reconsider. But we know that won't happen. I am grandfathered into Philo for $10/month, which sounds like a much better deal.

      • Stop forcing us to pay a local broadcast fee and sports fee. Last time I looked at getting cable TV, those fees turned me off. I don't watch sports and have an antenna, I'm not about paying a bunch of money for those fees. Give me a no-sports and no-local channel option and I may reconsider. But we know that won't happen. I am grandfathered into Philo for $10/month, which sounds like a much better deal.

        I can understand the non-sports, if you aren't a sports fan....

        But I don't get the non-LOCAL channel com

        • I haven't watched local TV in the last 11 years. It's been all streaming for me. If something big is happening, it's going to get streamed on the station's website (as with tornado tracking) or on YouTube. If a storm is bad enough or a tornado is near enough to knock out my Internet access, I'm going to be sheltering away from the TV anyway.

        • It just struck me as odd to hear someone rail against local channels.

          I have an antenna that picks up the local channels for free (as does the parent post)..

          I don't have anything against local channels; I just don't need to pay for a second copy.

    • Streaming absolutely bundles. You just buy each bundle from a different provider.

      A la carte wouldn't make things cheaper. There's typically one channel that people are willing to get the bundle for, and the others are added as a value add. The cable company pays more for certain channels, and you're paying for the one you want in a bundle.
    • I sure see a lot of complaints about fractured streaming is and people wish they could pay one low price and get everything, like netflix used to be.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
        People want to get things for cheaper (because they are subsidized), but they don't want to be the one subsidizing for someone else.

  • I'd say "good riddance" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @08:52PM (#64133073) Homepage

    But as we know, yesterday's cable companies are still today's broadband providers. All this really boils down to is that us "broadband only" customers are going to see higher bills, as profitability must be maintained. I'm pretty sure that's one of the Ferengi rules of acquisition.

    • To control prices. There's a variety of ways to do it indirectly if you're uncomfortable with direct price controls. Sort of like how instead of directly controlling our food supply from the federal government we passed the farm bill and use a complex series of subsidies and free consultation services to get basically the same effect.

      Either way though we know that broadband providers charge many many times more than it costs for them to provide the service. And we know that vast swaths of the service th

      • ban the hidden fees like forced rsn, locals, hardware rent fees and make them be part of the BASE rate shown in the adds.

        • For hidden fees. It doesn't hurt to ban hidden fees but that doesn't lower prices when you're dealing with defacto monopolies or it best duopolies.

          Now with banning hidden fees will do is help get public sentiment on your side about more effective measures but it's really nothing more than a stepping stone to doing something more drastic and effective

          • The vast majority of fees are government mandated anyway. This especially true on your electric bill. At least cable is optional. With my electric bill you have your environmental fee and a low income subsidy fee. I literally have a pie chart on my bill showing the fees, taxes, distribution and generation. Zero reason to bother looking at it as you have to pay it anyway. You are not even legally allowed to disconnect from the grid in the vast majority of my state regardless if you have battery+solar/wind or

      • I think rather we are a very tiny fraction of the greater population. As George Carlin once said, think of the intelligence of the average person and then consider 50% of all people are dumber then that. And here we are.

        Worse, both our political parties are corrupt as can be. One party is religious idiots that wouldn't mind a theocracy, so long as it's their religion in charge and the other side are a bunch of hypocritical corrupt assholes that are 100% positive they know best and you should just fall in li

    • I'm pretty sure that's one of the Ferengi rules of acquisition.

      Ferengi rule of acquisition #83: The flimsier the product, the higher the price.

    • Comcast has raised the cost of our internet-only subscription by $3/month each of the past two years - so there's definitely evidence to support you.

      Prior to that, we also had basic cable - the cost of which seemed to go up at a signficantly faster rate. But it's possible those Comcast Ferengi have small lobes and haven't quite figured this out yet.

      • Comcast has raised the cost of our internet-only subscription by $3/month each of the past two years - so there's definitely evidence to support you.

        How much are you paying? If it's a more expensive plan, $3/month isn't much more than normal inflation. Even if you're paying $50/month, an increase of $3/month is still right around what inflation has been the past couple years.

        • My Comcast internet is $57 total each month, which, honestly, doesn't seem like the worst deal in the world since we use it a lot and it's reliable.

          The bigger burn is paying for 5 unlimited cellphone plans.

          • Families aren't cheap. Especially if most members of the house don't produce anything, which is expected out of minors and maybe even adult children.

    • Further, instead of paying for cable, we'll be paying even more for streaming bundles. What's old is new again.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Further, instead of paying for cable, we'll be paying even more for streaming bundles. What's old is new again.

        I think it's safe to add to your post a section about how people will once again move towards piracy and the media companies will cry over it seemingly without a clue as to how their anti consumer behavior brought things to that point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stikves ( 127823 )

      Their trick is simple.

      In most places, I have seen only one real fast internet offering when I moved. (The rest was slow DSL or mobile).

      In the rare cases I had more than one, I could get really good deals, no quotas, and reliable, fast service.

      If we want to solve the otherwise miserable condition of US broadband offerings, we somehow have to force them to compete for the same neighborhoods. I should not have to move to switch to a different ISP.

  • Poor quality and ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @08:52PM (#64133075)

    Modern pay-TV is utter crap, and the amounts of ads unbearable. What did they expect?

  • What the fuck is "vMVPDs"?

    • Re: What the fuck is "vMVPDs"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Unpopular Opinions ( 6836218 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @09:05PM (#64133103)

      Virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributor.

      • So vMVPD means entities like YouTube TV and Fubo, if I'm interpreting that correctly?

        Those have always seemed (to me) like just crappy internet-based reinventions of the Cable TV model - forcing you to pay for lots of channels you don't care about at a too-high price.

        • Pretty much!
          I'm really wondering why Google / Youtube decided to jump into this dying business model. And additionally why they decided to throw so much at getting NFL Sunday ticket. It all seems like the definition of "diminishing return" to me.

          • If they are leeching cable subscribers then apparently not.

            • If people are indeed leaving pay tv services because they don't like bundling and the costs are too high, then I don't see how an $85 a month bundled pay tv service is a long term winner.

              It's easy to grow when you start at nothing. Youtube tv is gaining because they are throwing tons of money into advertising and establishing a new service. They are getting the leavings of the big pay services. They also enjoy a temporary price advantage because subscribers are not required to buy any equpiment.

              Those adv

  • It's not a poor result, it's a great result. But streaming service prices are not better.

  • I'm not convinced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irreverentdiscourse ( 1922968 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @08:59PM (#64133091)

    The TV portion of my FIOS bill is only $80 (paired with gigabit internet) and I get every channel, 5 premiums, RedZone, and never have to watch an ad if i don't want to thanks to DVR.

    YoutubeTV isn't even providing a better value *now*. People are just really into fads. The quality sucks and the ads are coming.

  • Update Bruce Springsteen For Today (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NoWayNoShapeNoForm ( 7060585 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @10:03PM (#64133189)

    570 Channels (And Nothin' On

    Springsteen's original song was titled 57 Channels (And Nothin' On from his Human Touch album.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Released in 1992, only 7 years after Weird Al Yankovic's "Cable TV".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Krokus ( 88121 )

      I've got 570 channels of shit on the TV to choose from.

      Pink Floyd's original lyric was "I've got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from".

  • cable tv is so last century (Score:3)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Thursday January 04, 2024 @10:06PM (#64133197)
    what do they offer?
    a basic package of bundled channels
    and a deluxe package with all the channels that should be in the basic package but its not (because they want more money)
    and a collection of premium channels for crazy high prices
    no thanks i will do without before i pay almost a kings ransom for that

  • Do the math (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Unpopular Opinions ( 6836218 ) on Friday January 05, 2024 @12:03AM (#64133375)

    For the price you pay for cable, satellite or any subscription TV, you can also buy the entire season Blu-ray or dvd disc set in maybe two months, tops, of the cheapest service. Considering you may not be able to watch online programs you legally purchased (*ahem* Sony), or the show you want to see is not airing at the season you want to watch, sticking to proven ways of actual content ownership is not rocket science.

    • Re:Do the math (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Friday January 05, 2024 @05:05AM (#64133689)

      This is actually poignant, as this is what market research indicates concerning the GenZ consumer base. (which is the most financially disadvantaged, and thus, most interested in maximal value for a purchase.)

      https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

      I remember reading an OP-ED about this about 3 days ago now, in which the primary motivational component of buying physical media, was the lack of ability of content distributors to retroactively rescind access after license purchase.

      A significant case could be built for format shifting, given this trend. However, that would be in the "Jack the Ripper!!" mindset of media companies, vis-a-vis VHS was in the 80s. Format shifting purchased blu-ray and DVD to digital, for use with an in-home PLEX server, would have all the convenience of a streaming service, with none of the issues. Excepting of course, for media companies being allowed to be obstinate trolls.

      • ...was the lack of ability of content distributors to retroactively rescind access after license purchase.

        If they're buying Blu-Ray, then they have only improved their situation slightly. Blu-Ray uses a (to the best of my knowledge) unbroken encryption system that allows distributors to rescind the key and make the contents unplayable.

        If you want to own the media you purchase, buy DVD's. The encryption was broken long ago, and they can be easily added to your media server of choice.

        • Yes and no, on blu-ray not being broken.

          Blu-ray is not broken, but the digital data transport over hdmi IS.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]

          A blu-ray player, and a homebrew hack cobbled from a cheap SBC, should let you make unencumbered copies of the digital datastream.

          Not as elegant as just decoding it off the disc directly, such as with DeCSS, but blu-ray is not invulnerable due to this sideband attack.

        • You are out of date on this. Bluray can be ripped, generally without much trouble. Check MakeMKV [makemkv.com].

          I've transferred many of our Bluray discs over to a Plex server. Which is useful because our Bluray player is starting to have problems.

          The bigger issue with doing this is that the rips can take quite a lot of space. A 1080p movie takes about 6-8GB usually, which isn't too bad. But a 4K Bluray can take around 50-80GB each. You need a big storage array if you want a good size library.

    • Seems like it would be hard to decide which shows to buy on blu-ray, since finding something you like generally requires a fair amount of grazing.

      To me, old-fashioned dvd-mailbox netflix is retrospectively seeming increasingly not-bad. Although it scored poorly on instant gratification for sure.

  • Cut the cord over 15 years ago, just wasn't nothing that we wanted to watch anymore plus more woke shows ! No Thanks ! It will get worse, as my kids will NEVER subscribe !!!
  • https://www.thestreet.com/tech... [thestreet.com] When you fuck your customers over for as long as US cable companies have people will take any alternative.
  • To be honest, it's mostly elderly Americans who have cable TV blasting Fox News and QVC into their brains 24/7. Cable, satellite, and internet-based broadcast TV is an obsolete relic of the 90's before asynchronous and on-demand streaming made them entirely antiquated.

  • Anyone know much about this? I look into this but most sites seem to be a bit skechy (which I don't mind but worry when entering credit card info).

    I've tried googling and it looks like it is cable but over the internet (and not region locked) so seems interesting to me.

  • This is why I think the cable companies have already begun the pivot to becoming mostly an _Internet_ provider.

    After all, Comcast rolled out DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 technology in the last decade, and just started rolling out DOCSIS 4.0 symmetric gigabit Internet recently. I expect Comcast's revenue to be mostly through being a gigabit-speed ISP by 2030, and Comcast will be essentially streaming most of their content. Yes, there is competition from fiber providers, but fiber is not yet available even in many metr

  • The sports and broadcast fees that are outside the terms of my contract have risen from $6 per month to $30 per month over the contract length. I cannot cancel the contract without a significant penalty, so I am stuck paying the fees (quite the racket the cable company has there). When my contract expires in a couple months, it's bye-bye to the cable company for me. I'm switching to a different ISP and will be streaming.

  • While we understand what they are trying to convey, technically, shrinking by -7.3% is the same as an increase of 7.3%.

  • ... TFA is fraught with negative numbers what with people bailing from this and that. Where did those people go? Thanks.

  • My mom has been trialing Hulu for about three months ahead of her cable tv subscription coming up for renewal. She dropped cable TV in january. She is in her 70s. I don't know anyone who has cable at this point. If people in their 70s are switching to streaming then cable TV has a Very Real Problem.

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