Altice USA CEO Says Cable TV Will Die and Broadband and Wireless Companies Should Merge (cnbc.com) 35
An anonymous reader shares a report: When French telecommunications company Altice acquired U.S. cable companies Cablevision and Suddenlink, Chairman Patrick Drahi made a bold statement: Altice USA would rival Comcast and Charter in size, becoming one of the three dominant U.S. cable operators. Fast forward nearly six years, and Altice USA has about 5 million customer relationships, compared with about 31 million each for Comcast and Charter. (Altice USA did announce a $310 million acquisition of Morris Broadband on Monday, which will give it about 36,000 more customers.) CEO Dexter Goei explained to CNBC what prevented Altice USA's rapid expansion, why he thinks cable and wireless will eventually merge in the U.S., and why it's only a matter of time before cable TV becomes extinct.
CNBC: So let me ask that question in a slightly different way. Do you envision a day where cable TV, as we know it, simply no longer exists?
Goei: Yes. For sure. Everything is going to be IP-based, and then the question is because everything is IP based, and you have so many different choices...what the cable bundle is doing today is putting together everything that's available in the OTT world and providing it to you in a good format for you to be able to guide yourself through lots of different options in the way you watch television. As technology and integration technology continues to get better and better, you're going to be able to aggregate that on your OTT platforms, your smart TV. Your Samsung TV today already has, say, 20 apps, 30, 40 apps already there. The pain of it is you're always clicking between the apps, all the time. Once you can get the whole aggregation together and make it look very similar to what you do in a cable environment, then that interactivity becomes second nature and doesn't really matter who's doing the bundle. It could just be your set-box provider, your smart TV provider.
CNBC:: So this idea that some media executives have that there's going to be a floor at 50 million subscribers, that's ultimately fantasy?
Goei: I think so, because name me one person under 30 years old who has a cable video connection. I can't. So it's just a question of time. People grow up in a certain way. I tell my kids all day long, how could you spend 10 hours a day on your iPhone? And they're like, "Daddy, that's our life. We didn't go out in the woods and build bricks and castles and stuff like you. That stuff is boring. My whole life is on my phone." So, there's an evolution of technology and habits and the way people consume content that's changed dramatically over the last ten years, and it's going to continue to change.
CNBC: So let me ask that question in a slightly different way. Do you envision a day where cable TV, as we know it, simply no longer exists?
Goei: Yes. For sure. Everything is going to be IP-based, and then the question is because everything is IP based, and you have so many different choices...what the cable bundle is doing today is putting together everything that's available in the OTT world and providing it to you in a good format for you to be able to guide yourself through lots of different options in the way you watch television. As technology and integration technology continues to get better and better, you're going to be able to aggregate that on your OTT platforms, your smart TV. Your Samsung TV today already has, say, 20 apps, 30, 40 apps already there. The pain of it is you're always clicking between the apps, all the time. Once you can get the whole aggregation together and make it look very similar to what you do in a cable environment, then that interactivity becomes second nature and doesn't really matter who's doing the bundle. It could just be your set-box provider, your smart TV provider.
CNBC:: So this idea that some media executives have that there's going to be a floor at 50 million subscribers, that's ultimately fantasy?
Goei: I think so, because name me one person under 30 years old who has a cable video connection. I can't. So it's just a question of time. People grow up in a certain way. I tell my kids all day long, how could you spend 10 hours a day on your iPhone? And they're like, "Daddy, that's our life. We didn't go out in the woods and build bricks and castles and stuff like you. That stuff is boring. My whole life is on my phone." So, there's an evolution of technology and habits and the way people consume content that's changed dramatically over the last ten years, and it's going to continue to change.
No more friggen merging! (Score:3)
Why merge? Cable can just become broadband providers and we'd have more choice. I'm tired of being forced to choose between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.
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Cable can just become broadband providers and we'd have more choice.
Many are already. For example, Cox, Comcast, Verizon already provide cable TV, wired broadband internet and wired phone service. Some, like Verizon, also provide cell phone/data service.
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Drats! Splittem!
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Cable companies are lucky that they can do more than TV service. They will survive with their non-TV services.
Not every kid is on a phone 24/7 (Score:2)
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Also, the part that was left out was when the kid also remarks that if the parent can be constantly on their phone why can't the kids? 8^)
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Maybe eventually die (Score:2)
But there are still a lot of people with landlines, even today.
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Lots of old people whose habits die hard. I don't know anybody under 40 with a landline. Similarly, the percentage of people under 40 who pay for cable TV has to be pretty low, and will diminish further as sports become more available to stream.
The idea of watching an ongoing stream of content that is only broadcast at a certain time is basically a holdover from the over the air broadcast days. Other than things that are time sensitive like news and sporting events, I don't see a future in services that onl
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The idea of watching an ongoing stream of content that is only broadcast at a certain time is basically a holdover from the over the air broadcast days. Other than things that are time sensitive like news and sporting events, I don't see a future in services that only broadcast certain content at certain times.
As someone who hasn't had a TV receiver since 1997, I still find broadcast a nice technology in some ways. Streaming live shows such as news over the internet is idiotic, you're just sending copies of the same content and wasting bandwidth. It's double-plus-idiotic if you're doing this over the cell phone network and causing emergency calls to fail, which has already happened in some places.
For things like movies, streaming also seems wasteful in the sense of hogging bandwidth, compared to something like
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"The idea of watching an ongoing stream of content that is only broadcast at a certain time is basically a holdover from the over the air broadcast days."
This is the way I like to watch, browsing a "TV GUIDE" style display and choosing something that is playing now. Right now, on NBCSN, if I hadn't already seen it, I'd be watching Phil Helmuth absolutely destroying Antonio Esfandiari in a high-stakes heads up series of poker matches. That was fun. I may tune it after I get done here just to hear Antoni
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60% of households have no landline.
6% of households have no cell phones.
3% of households have no phone at all.
The number of households will no landline is increasing by about 3% per year. So by 2024, 70% of households will have no landline.
I want comcast do die (Score:2)
When do I get my wish? Anything will be better than those people that can't tell the truth with poor service at comcast (xfinity)
Not exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
Satellite and cable TV distribution will die simply because all the content creation companies are building or have already built their own paid-for streaming service. DirecTV and Dish are pretty much toast. Cable will stick around because it's an internet infrastructure business. Wireless may eventually get enough 5G coverage to make cable internet unprofitable. Starlink will take care of internet access to the areas that won't have 5G infrastructure assuming that they can keep up with the demand.
Are we going to end up spending more money on individual streaming services than we did when it was a one-stop-shopping experience. We're talking $170 now for all of the majors plus $90 for cable internet. So, $260 per month. That's today. Not every content provider has a streaming service yet.
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Re:Not exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
Netflix: 17.99
Disney+: 6.99
Youtube: free
Everyone else: pass
Total: $24.98/month.
Basic Cable TV in 2009 (last time I had it): $95 (maybe more, I don't remember exactly).
That's a $70 savings, which is just the tip of the iceberg of why Cable TV is going to die. For Cable TV to even start to compare favorably to my current streaming services would easily cost me several hundred dollars a month. So no, I won't even come close to spending what Cable TV costs.
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Seems like you're leaving out the price of what brings you to that dance: the Internet connectivity. Your Cable service included getting their content to your house. Are you paying less than $70/month for Internet? If so, you win, but if not, then recalculate. (Also, not as part of any argument but just as an information point: D+ is going up a buck this month.)
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Seems like you're leaving out the price of what brings you to that dance: the Internet connectivity.
Yes, I did that intentionally since Internet access is a sunk cost that is not purchased just for streaming. I have the same Internet access with or without paid streaming, so it's not part of my streaming cost.
The Disney+ cost is already factored into my calculations above.
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Additionally, not all entertainment options are equal. With Cable TV, I'm paying that $95 to watch an endless parade of useless commercials. That has a non-monetary time and sanity cost (but I would translate it to a combined cost of about $8,000,000/minute at the lower end). With streaming, that cost disappears.
Totally ignores the fact that (Score:1)
Cable TV providers ARE broadband providers.
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To limited Cable TV like TV and Streaming (Score:2)
Video is such a time waster. Since I have pared my video use down to almost nothing it is amazing how much I get done now.
And I am getting back in to all the music I have purchased over the years. Built a media server and have burned everything to it.
Now I just stream music from my home media server.
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Oh no no no, no bias whatsoever from this guy! (Score:2)
Yeah how about 'NO!'. More monopolies aren't going to benefit anyone but the monopolies.
I'd love to cut the cord... (Score:2)
Unless the major networks start recognizing that there just might be some demand in countries outside of the USA that is worth licensing to foreign streaming services, I don't see cutting the cord anytime soon
How much more audience (Score:2)
will CNN and CNBC lose when Cable TV dies? Will anyone actually watch their news channels after this?
The Altice CEO actually claimed this? (Score:3)
Altice USA would rival Comcast and Charter in size, becoming one of the three dominant U.S. cable operators.
After Altice bought out Suddenlink and Cablevision, its first move was to close every office those companies had. The result has been service so horrible that as soon as Starlink opens for business the entire Altice customer base will desert to it in one blue flash.
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Small local cable cos are already dropping (Score:3)
Had my wife's aunt ask us about streaming TV options rather unexpectedly. Because their rural cable collective dropped TV service altogether (see https://www.sktc.net/tv/ [sktc.net]) because they just weren't big enough to fight the agreement negotiation fight any more. Interestingly, because she's outside effective antenna range of her primary market city (in the digital/ATSC era), it's made the big 4 networks the very hardest thing to get.
Writing is better than TV (Score:1)