Cable TV Customer Satisfaction Falls Even Further Behind Streaming Video (arstechnica.com) 52
Netflix and other online video services have expanded their customer-satisfaction lead over cable and satellite TV, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) found in its annual telecommunications report released today. Ars Technica reports: Streaming-video services averaged a score of 76 on the ACSI's 100-point scale, up from 75 last year. Meanwhile, the traditional subscription-TV industry's score remained unchanged at 62. "For the past six years, customer satisfaction with subscription TV has languished in the mid-to-low 60s, not recovering enough to effectively compete with streaming services," the ACSI report said. "In 2018, subscription sales declined 3 percent to $103.4 billion. Customer service remains poor, and cord cutting is accelerating. As video-streaming services gain traction, a growing number of households may never subscribe to pay TV in the first place."
Pay-TV and broadband -- two services that are generally offered in bundles by the same companies -- each posted an industry average of 62, which is again in "last place among all [46] industries tracked by the ACSI," the report said. Pay-TV's satisfaction score peaked at 68 in 2013 and has dropped steadily since. Streaming services rated significantly higher than cable and satellite in many categories, including the ease of understanding bills, mobile app quality and reliability, and call-center satisfaction. Comcast remained near the bottom of pay-TV rankings with a score of 57, while AT&T's U-verse led the ranking despite dropping from 70 to 69. Coincidentally, AT&T's streaming service -- DirecTV Now -- also fell from 70 to 69. But while the AT&T U-verse TV score of 69 was good enough to lead all cable and satellite TV providers, the DirecTV Now score of 69 was in second-to-last place among streaming providers. Netflix took the top spot in streaming satisfaction by raising its score from 78 to 79.
Pay-TV and broadband -- two services that are generally offered in bundles by the same companies -- each posted an industry average of 62, which is again in "last place among all [46] industries tracked by the ACSI," the report said. Pay-TV's satisfaction score peaked at 68 in 2013 and has dropped steadily since. Streaming services rated significantly higher than cable and satellite in many categories, including the ease of understanding bills, mobile app quality and reliability, and call-center satisfaction. Comcast remained near the bottom of pay-TV rankings with a score of 57, while AT&T's U-verse led the ranking despite dropping from 70 to 69. Coincidentally, AT&T's streaming service -- DirecTV Now -- also fell from 70 to 69. But while the AT&T U-verse TV score of 69 was good enough to lead all cable and satellite TV providers, the DirecTV Now score of 69 was in second-to-last place among streaming providers. Netflix took the top spot in streaming satisfaction by raising its score from 78 to 79.
duh. (Score:4, Interesting)
if cable were smart, they would have un-bundled crap channels and re-positioned ads before and after their shows instead of interrupting the show. Who is paying who here???! . I cut the cord because I couldn't justify ~200 bucks a month to get marketed at on 1000 channels with nothing worth watching. Instead of listening to their customers, big cable just put their fingers in their ears. I switched to Sonic internet. No caps, no bundles ~ 80 bucks a month. I never looked back again. I wish I could cut the cord 2 times!!!
Re:duh. (Score:4, Informative)
if cable were smart, they would have un-bundled crap channels
Not cables fault entirely. As a cable carrier, you want to carry ESPN. But Disney says, "You want our sports channel? You've got to carry our other garbage channels as well."
Re: duh. (Score:5, Interesting)
People always drag out ESPN and claim sports is so popular on tv. Streaming services don't offer sports so the argument holds no water. People are obviously willing to pay for streaming and could give 2 shits about sportsball.
This. The cable operators think ESPN is important because a fraction of people will pay a lot for it. But there is a bigger fraction who would probably pay to never have to see it again - and they did, but cutting the cord. They lost the majority to retain the minority.
Re: duh. (Score:1)
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They lost the majority to retain the minority.
They lost the majority to retain the Money
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I like my Roku but they really need to tone down the 4000+ channels they advertise. You really have about 200 useful channels and 3800 channels of shit, ufo conspiracy, old PD movies, and some dues wearing a tinfoil hat raving like a loon for hours at a time.
There there is the best channel on Ruko, The SpreadSheet channel.
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Amazon Prime offers a lot of shows on an individual basis. You only need to pay for a handful of them before you're making a loss.
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Re: Not surprised at all ... (Score:1)
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Better question (Score:5, Interesting)
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If Satan hands you a bottle of water in the desert, you could only bring yourself to hate him so much.
I'm pretty sure this is along the lines of Battered Wife Syndrome.
Re: Better question (Score:2)
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Cable TV is laughably bad, and nothing will ever change that. My Cable Internet, however, is a completely different story, and it makes U-Verse look like the steaming pile of shit that it is.
I was paying AT&T about $70/month for 24mb down and (I think) 6mb up. And that was the fastest speed available in my area. That includes the $5/month (I think) fee for the forced renting of their shitty gateway. There is no way to have U-Verse without using their gateway, by the way. I also experienced daily ou
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I was going to say that a better question is why the rating for cable is still so high
It isn't.
The media wont talk about it, because its their ratings that are down too.
The only cable channel that seems to have growing ratings is Fox News, but thats just the old people that used to trust CNN/MSNBC abandoning those ships as they sink into the septic tank. The once #1 cable personality (and highest paid), Rachel Maddow, now has especially bad ratings. Random youtubers wearing beanies have bigger audiences now.
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I'm actually wondering if this will have (Score:1)
Thing is with cord cutting and high speed cell phones if you want that stuff you really have to seek it out. It's not just there on AM radio and the evening news [youtube.com] like today. On the other hand it's easy to find echo chambers online and hard to get out of the
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The very wiki article you cite says the "documentary" is pretty shitty.
Were you just waiting to chime in with this insight? Because it basically has nothing to do with the topic.
No Cable TV for nearly 10 years... (Score:1)
I got rid of cable TV nearly 10 years ago, haven't missed it, and saving a ton of money. I only pay for the ad free version of Hulu, CBS All Access, and Britbox. Between those three, online podcasts, my ever growing DVD/Blu-ray collection, and the 26 channels I get free over the air, I have WAY more than I have the time to watch!
I don't have a use for the services that stream live cable TV channels either. It's the same lame channels I wasn't watching back when I had cable TV, just delivered a different way
Example - HBO (Score:1)
It's simple really... (Score:3)
Classic innovator's dilemma (Score:1)
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