this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024

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Bleeding subscribers, cable companies force their way into streaming | Companies like Comcast and Charter brought about the streaming industry they now want to join (arstechnica.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The cable industry has been in a nose-dive for years. Comcast's Q1 2024 earnings report showed its cable business losing 487,000 subscribers. The cable giant ended 2022 with 16,142,000 subscribers; in January, it had 13,600,000.

Charter, the only US cable company bigger than Comcast, is rapidly losing pay-TV subscribers, too. In its Q1 2024 earnings report, Charter reported losing 405,000 subscribers, including business accounts. It ended 2022 with 15,147,000 subscribers; at the end of March, it had 13,717,000.

And, like Comcast, Charter is looking to streaming bundles to keep its pay-TV business alive and to compete with the likes of YouTube TV and Hulu With Live TV.

It’s a curious time as cable TV providers scramble to be part of an industry created in reaction to business practices that many customers viewed as anti-consumer. Meanwhile, the streaming industry is adopting some of these same practices, like commercials and incessant price hikes, to establish profitability. And some smaller streaming players say it's nearly impossible to compete as the streaming industry's top players are taking form and, in some cases, collaborating.

But after decades of discouraging many subscribers with few alternatives, it will be hard for former or current cable customers to view firms like Comcast and Charter as trustworthy competitive streaming providers.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The problem I have always had with cable TV, and now with streaming, is the advertisements. I understand why free services inject ads into their video stream; they have to make a profit somehow. I don't like it, and I'll block the ads, but I understand it.

Having experience what ad-free entertainment is like, be it from Netflix years ago, renting movies online, or Youtube with Adblock, I will never pay for a service that's going to show me ads. Either make the service free and cash in on ad revenue or sell the service for an appropriate price that you can afford not to show ads. Sticking to the old model of "pay for cable TV and watch commercials" is never going to work, be it cable or streaming. I don't think I'm in the minority here, either; I've heard this sentiment from plenty of others.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Sticking to the old model of “pay for cable TV and watch commercials” is never going to work, be it cable or streaming. I don’t think I’m in the minority here, either; I’ve heard this sentiment from plenty of others.

As much as wish I could agree with you, the previous ad-free streaming services now almost all offering an ad-supported tier disagrees with your conclusion. Price conscious consumers are choosing ad-supported subscriptions in large enough numbers for streaming services to offer them profitably. I'm okay with this. Not everyone has the money that I do, but I'll almost always choose the ad-free version of a streaming channel instead of the ad-supported.

One of the few exceptions to that is Hulu. I don't watch enough on Hulu to make it worth $18/month, and the ad-supported version can be had for $1/month-$2/month.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

It's certainly possible (and probably even likely) that you're correct. Most of the people I've spoken to about that are somewhat tech-inclined and probably much more likely to be using an adblocker than the average person.

So many years of ad-free media has just ruined me on ad-supported content. I sat down in front of a public TV tuned to a cable channel the other day, and it was absolutely unwatchable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I can't subscribe to anything because I don't trust them to not try to stuff ads down my throat in a few months.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Its a monthly subscription, and if they sell you a no-ad product you'd have strong grounds to ask for a refund for that month. Otherwise simply cancel the month you see ads.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thats a lot more work than a torrent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

If you're torrenting, then there's no risk of watching ads from what you download, which was your primary argument for not subbing. If that's the case then there's no risk to subscribing to the service to pay for the content, and simply never log in.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

For nostalgia's sake I watched a YouTube video of [adult swim] complete with original commercials and bumpers. Even though I specifically requested commercials they were pretty terrible and I ended up skipping them anyway.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Good riddance you greedy time vampires.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

No kidding. Forcing us to watch commercials is unbearable.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Cable companies have seen the writing one the wall with Cable TV for quite awhile. They had the perfect product to pivot to with broadband. Had they offered a great product with great customer service, they'd have had the market forever especially how much consumers felt burned by telecoms abusing their market dominance with with early broadband.

Instead, cable companies doubled down on the lock-in and bundle model with deceptive pricing and horrible customer service ceding ground to wireless providers and even the same telecoms that were hated before.

Our household cut the cord on cableTV/satellite about 14 years ago, but kept cable modem service since then. Now that the local telecom has laid fiber at 500Mb/s for $49/month we dropped any relationship with the cable company. Two months before the fiber came in, cable suddenly dropped the price of our 100Mb/s service and increased the speed to $300Mb/s. At $80/month it was still better for us to ditch the cable company and go with the telecom fiber connection.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I'm really glad AT&T and Verizon decided to step in and start competing. At least in my area it's changed everything, Spectrum (formerly the only cable provider) is now offering much more competitive pricing and better service (though AT&T has earned some loyalty because the fiber and symmetric speeds have been really great.

Following the Biden admin pricing transparency regulations I was able to get a better price as well.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The cable giant is also selling the streaming service bundled with its cable service or with its recently released streaming bundle that combines Comcast’s Peacock with Netflix, Apple TV+, and ads for $15/month.

We have closed the loop, officially coming full circle. And what an absolute shocker, Comcast is right smack in the middle of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Comcast was just waiting until having ads in streaming services was normalized.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The streaming services are just operating the same way cable providers did now anyway. Worse in some cases.

Full circle.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

How is this news in 2024? Haven't they been bleeding for a decade +?

Streaming is new cable now anyways with fragmentation of media, ads slowly sneaking into various platforms etc. The golden age of streaming was brief.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

When the fuck are these companies gonna look at the quote "Piracy is a service problem" are they too greedy or something???