Nearly Half of Canadians Have Cut Cable Entirely

According to Convergence Research, an estimated 46% of Canadian households didn't have a TV subscription with a cable, satellite, or telecom-based provider in 2024. MobileSyrup reports: In its latest annual "Couch Potato" report (PDF) on the streaming market, the firm notes that this was a four per cent increase from 2023 and that the number is expected to continue to rise to 54 per cent by 2027. Convergence notes that this marks a greater shift towards subscription video on demand services (SVOD) like Netflix and Disney+. To that point, the firm found that Canadian streaming subscription revenue grew 15 per cent year-over-year to $4.2 billion in 2024. At the same time, linear TV subscription revenue dropped five per cent to around $6.5 billion.

Some other interesting findings from the report:
- The 10 leading streaming providers raised prices in Canada by an average of six percent last year
- Ad-enabled memberships are cost 39 percent less on average compared to ad-free options
- Canadians subscribe to an average of 2.6 streaming platforms per household

Re:

[garyisabusyguy]

The only response to ignorant trumpers, like the post I am replying to, is for all Americans to drop cable programming so that we can STARVE FOX NEWS into oblivion

The fox news propaganda machine is paid for by every American who buys a cable package

Fox news uses this money to spread lies and propaganda as 'News", unless they are sued, in which case the call it "Entertainment"

Cable companies refuse to sell a fox-free cable package, so the only recourse to to cancel your cable

I have been cable-free for six mo

I don't either.

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

I don't feel I need to be broadcast to. Youtube + UBO and pirate torrents are such a better experience.

Re:I don't either.

[alvinrod]

The streaming services are quickly going downhill, but getting kicked in the nuts has been a better experience than cable for quite some time. I'm surprised that half still have cable and would not be at all surprised to if the data showed it was mostly generational with older Canadians largely having cable subscriptions and younger Canadians typically not. Cable is quickly becoming the new AOL in that way.

Re:

[Kernel Kurtz]

Outside of using my cable connection for internet, I keep my TV sub primarily for live sports, specifically Formula One and NHL (go Lewis, go Jets!), and a handful of al la carte specialty channels. TV shows and movies I mostly just torrent. I could probably find pirate streams of the sports too, but it's not worth the aggravation.

Re: I don't either.

[fluffernutter]

The Jets are doing awesome this year.

Re:

[Kernel Kurtz]

Hope they don't collapse in the playoffs, as they often do. Tonight's game against Washington should be telling.

Re: I don't either.

[fluffernutter]

Yes they have always collapsed. Even the original team in the 80's. I haven't been watching the games but I'm afraid to start because that's usually when they start losing.

Re:

[Tablizer]

But everything everywhere is slop now. It's sloppy turtles all the way down to a sloppily defined boundary.

Misleading...

[aardvarkjoe]

You didn't "cut cable" if you didn't have it in the first place; the number they're citing is a percentage of total households without cable, not the number of total households that had cable and got rid of it.

Re:

[rudy_wayne]

"Cut Cable Entirely" is simply not true. They are still paying for it, they are just using it for Internet Streaming instead of traditional Cable TV.

Re: Misleading...

[fluffernutter]

You raise a good point. Does cutting the cable mean no cable internet? I know I'm a Canadian and I have a tv box but never use it. The problem is if I want Internet and phone anyway then just stopping the tv box doesn't really save much.

Re:

[SK_CUPost]

It's called "cord-cutting," and it means dropping your cable TV subscription, not doing without any cords (cable, optical fibre, the line to your satellite dish...) We cut the cord years ago (and the land line), and we get our Internet from a small provider. The big Canadian cable TV and comms packages were way too expensive, offered 500 channels with nothing on, and came jam-packed with ads. At the time, Internet streaming looked a lot better. Things have changed since then. Avoiding ads is back -- big

All thar winnin'!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Nearly Half of Canadians Have Cut Cable Entirely

Thanks to the brilliant economic moves of the current US President, half of Canadians will be cutting a lot more stuff entirely!

Can you blame them?

[freeze128]

Cable TV - It's TV that you pay for, and still have to endure advertisements.

Cut the cord over 15 years ago...

[bsdetector101]

Never had access to any "cable provider " like Comcast as live in a rural area. Did cut DishTV with 250 channels of mostly crap and we really only watched 3-5 channels. When I found I could watch sports on a reliable basis, DishTV was gone. I use my slow Windstream DSL to watch anything off the internet for free !