TV Cord-Cutting Accelerating at Much Faster Pace than Predicted

Megalith

Megalith

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According to the latest report by eMarketer, the number of adults canceling traditional TV service will reach 33 million by the end of this year, a 6 million increase from last year’s forecast. That equals to about 32.8 percent of American adults cutting the cord and embracing streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, or Netflix.

In 2015, there were 205.4 million traditional pay TV subscribers in the U.S., but by 2022 the number will have fallen to 169.7 million. Overall, 186.7 million adults will have paid to watch a traditional service in 2018, which is down 3.4 percent from the year prior. Satellite is losing the most subscribers, followed by the much smaller telco services, while the larger cable providers are holding up a little better.
 
Rahh said:
When all said and done we will wish we just had one service that gave us it all again.
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Not sure why you say that. With Roku, you sort of have that already. All the services appear like they are from one source. All are managed through Roku as well. I am happy with the streaming landscape and the choices I have there. No way would I ever go back to regular television.
 
If I can find some decent iptv outfits offering ujp multi-stream PVR in Canada I will join the cord cutting party. Bell up here offers their "Fibe TV" which is IPTV as well, but on very high quality servers. They also need special terminal/PVR boxes and charge a small fortune for it.
 
Rahh said:
When all said and done we will wish we just had one service that gave us it all again.
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As a 34yo adult, there is nothing traditional cable TV offers that I want. Everything I want to watch I get legitimately for free over the internet. I've watched the supposed "hot" shows like GoT, Walking Dead, et al. and they're trash (in my own opinion, of course).
 
cyberguyz said:
If I can find some decent iptv outfits offering ujp multi-stream PVR in Canada I will join the cord cutting party. Bell up here offers their "Fibe TV" which is IPTV as well, but on very high quality servers. They also need special terminal/PVR boxes and charge a small fortune for it.
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there's a few around here, you just have to look. i know that acanac was getting their hands in it years ago but i think they might have bailed out...i ditched them long ago. they tend to get ignored with all of bell's advertising. kind of like trying to talk at a normal volume with a huge fat bastard screaming next to you.

there's other options too depending on what you like to watch. i ditched my bell satellite nearly 8 years ago and i'll never look back.
 
Armenius said:
As a 34yo adult, there is nothing traditional cable TV offers that I want. Everything I want to watch I get legitimately for free over the internet. I've watched the supposed "hot" shows like GoT, Walking Dead, et al. and they're trash (in my own opinion, of course).
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The traditional TV corporations also seem to be on a suicide mission by having shows with just 10 episodes per year and a 5 year (or more) story arc. I'm 67 years old and I could be dead by the time they wrap up shows like GoT. Plus a lot of these shows with just 10 episodes per year don't have enough time to gain any traction with the viewers, so they end up getting canceled in mid-story arc, like The Expanse and Colony.
 
BSmith said:
Not sure why you say that. With Roku, you sort of have that already. All the services appear like they are from one source. All are managed through Roku as well. I am happy with the streaming landscape and the choices I have there. No way would I ever go back to regular television.
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I keep hearing about this roku, but have no idea what's it. Is it a service? Or a device? Or an app you can install? And is it only available in the US?

The problem with streaming is that I'd have to pay for 3-4 different services. HBO GO, Prime, Netflix, whatever, instead of paying a single fee, and watching anything. With streaming I can't watch everything even if I pay due to geographic restrictions applied. I signed up for prime and 3/4 of the library was off limits to me.
 
M76 said:
I keep hearing about this roku, but have no idea what's it. Is it a service? Or a device? Or an app you can install? And is it only available in the US?

The problem with streaming is that I'd have to pay for 3-4 different services. HBO GO, Prime, Netflix, whatever, instead of paying a single fee, and watching anything. With streaming I can't watch everything even if I pay due to geographic restrictions applied. I signed up for prime and 3/4 of the library was off limits to me.
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Use a VPN to mask your location. It's great watching TV from almost anywhere in the world while never leaving home.
 
I had several friends over, last weekend. Every single of them has cut the cord (or satellite) since seeing my Shield TV setup. I feel like the proud papa of a new litter of little streamers. :ROFLMAO:;):D
 
Aioeyu said:
Use a VPN to mask your location. It's great watching TV from almost anywhere in the world while never leaving home.
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I might as well pirate it then, since in their eyes VPN is the same. Not that there are any reliable free VPN services. And I'm not going to pay for piracy.
 
I was a cord cutter before it was a trend, so it is good to see even the not technologically advanced joining in. It does not, and has not, made any sense to pay big $$$ every month for the all-you-can-eat buffet of crappy food that is cable. The added benefit is no commercials. My kids don't even know what those are.

BSmith said:
Not sure why you say that. With Roku, you sort of have that already. All the services appear like they are from one source. All are managed through Roku as well. I am happy with the streaming landscape and the choices I have there. No way would I ever go back to regular television.
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I'll go even a little further, the typical smart tv now is virtually all anyone needs. There are apps for all of the popular media sources, and you can control it with your phone in most cases. This is probably enabling everyone to cut the cord and not just technophiles. Roku and Apple TV help, too.


Armenius said:
As a 34yo adult, there is nothing traditional cable TV offers that I want. Everything I want to watch I get legitimately for free over the internet. I've watched the supposed "hot" shows like GoT, Walking Dead, et al. and they're trash (in my own opinion, of course).
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+1. This is me, although I'm 42. I do watch Agents of Shield, but like you said I can get that for free over the internet and it is legal. Ditto for South Park. That is literally all I watch that originates on TV. Call me a snob, but I think everything else is trash that doesn't hold a candle to cinema. I'd rather watch Fellowship of the Ring for a 50th time than an episode of Game of Thrones.
 
M76 said:
I might as well pirate it then, since in their eyes VPN is the same. Not that there are any reliable free VPN services. And I'm not going to pay for piracy.
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Legitimately curious; how is using a VPN to get around a localization restriction similar to pirating?

I mean, you're paying for the service(s), why not take full advantage? It's not like that content is locked behind another paywall that you're subverting, it's locked due to local/foreign restrictions.
 
Big surprise here. You mean people DONT like paying $180+/mo for "bundles" that have advertising infested television? Shocked.
 
Skull_Angel said:
Legitimately curious; how is using a VPN to get around a localization restriction similar to pirating?

I mean, you're paying for the service(s), why not take full advantage? It's not like that content is locked behind another paywall that you're subverting, it's locked due to local/foreign restrictions.
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Not to mention that using VPN with LEGITIMATE services will keep Comcrap from throttling your data.
 
Skull_Angel said:
Legitimately curious; how is using a VPN to get around a localization restriction similar to pirating?

I mean, you're paying for the service(s), why not take full advantage? It's not like that content is locked behind another paywall that you're subverting, it's locked due to local/foreign restrictions.
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You can buy a car in India for 1/10 the price... but you are going to have to pay levies if you try ti import it into NA.

The content owners can sell their content anyway they see fit. Your streaming service doesn't say you get access to everything we offer everywhere in the world for X price... they say you get everything we offer in your market for X price.

Using VPNs to bypass your contracted services geo lock is piracy.

I'm not saying you should care... I am a full on pirate, and don't loose any sleep. There is no moral high ground though about paying for a service and then using a geo unlock. Due to the structure of international distribution deals... without geo locks the streaming services wouldn't get their hands on a ton of stuff, as for a long while yet its going to be more profitable for rights holders to sell localization rights to Forgin distributers.

Bottom line if your using a VPN... save your self all the monies and just find a good torrent site. Cause you have no moral high ground. Your a pirate.
 
cyberguyz said:
If I can find some decent iptv outfits offering ujp multi-stream PVR in Canada I will join the cord cutting party. Bell up here offers their "Fibe TV" which is IPTV as well, but on very high quality servers. They also need special terminal/PVR boxes and charge a small fortune for it.
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I was using Telus' OptikTV until about a year ago.. picked up an indoor antenna/stuck it to the window, run one cable to cheapo DVR box with external 2.5in HDD.. wife can record her daytime talk shows, watching morning news.. the rest is online anyway. luckily I'm on 4th floor I guess but get all 8 (!!!) local HD channels :D
 
Skull_Angel said:
Legitimately curious; how is using a VPN to get around a localization restriction similar to pirating?

I mean, you're paying for the service(s), why not take full advantage? It's not like that content is locked behind another paywall that you're subverting, it's locked due to local/foreign restrictions.
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That content is licensed for a geographic region. You are not in that geographic region. The people who are supposed to be getting paid, at the agreed upon rate, for your use of said media are not getting paid. Thus it is considered piracy. You may have paid someone, but it's not the right someone.

I could go pay my mechanic $80 for internet, but I don't think my ISP would see that as payment and consider me in arrears and owing them money. Same basic thing, jsut a bit more complicated in how the money is being shuffled around and rates are agreed upon.
 
I don't even have Netflix anymore cause I'm tired of spending money on shows that got broadcast over the air in the 90s. Recording said shows is/was legal when they aired so I don't even consider my private raid array worth of shows to even be piracy.
 
raz-0 said:
That content is licensed for a geographic region. You are not in that geographic region. The people who are supposed to be getting paid, at the agreed upon rate, for your use of said media are not getting paid. Thus it is considered piracy. You may have paid someone, but it's not the right someone.

I could go pay my mechanic $80 for internet, but I don't think my ISP would see that as payment and consider me in arrears and owing them money. Same basic thing, jsut a bit more complicated in how the money is being shuffled around and rates are agreed upon.
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Ah yeah, I forgot regional licensing is a thing (silly, but still reality).
 
I keep hearing about this roku, but have no idea what's it. Is it a service? Or a device?
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It is a number in Nihongo and a streaming device https://www.roku.com/. It isn't bad, but it can be better. nVidia's Shield Android TV is the best of them all, imo. Next would be Roku or Fire because of channels....but most of the channels are filler. I rather performance and Shield has that https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/shield-tv/.
 
Skull_Angel said:
Legitimately curious; how is using a VPN to get around a localization restriction similar to pirating?

I mean, you're paying for the service(s), why not take full advantage? It's not like that content is locked behind another paywall that you're subverting, it's locked due to local/foreign restrictions.
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It's licensing restrictions. The creator wants to milk your region by selling the content to local cable companies, instead of allowing a streaming service to make it available globally.

I'm not saying it's right, but that's how it is. If you subvert geolocking you're guilty as charged of piracy, it doesn't matter that you paid for it.
 
Cable companies are getting the shaft by content providers, ie. HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, ESPN, et al. Each of the premium content providers are forcing cable companies to buy their content in channel bundles. They won't let cable companies buy them ala carte and the bundle of channels is outrageously expensive. No cable company can afford to NOT have these premium content providers and are forced to buy and pass that cost onto end user customers. The cable companies are, of course, up charging for their channel packages and trying to force people into their service bundles, phone, cable, internet to keep their cash cow sucking at the cable company teets.

I cut the cord about 4 years ago, bought my own cable modem (refurbished and $50) so I don't have to RENT their crap for $5-$7 per month (paid for itself in 10 months). I bought an OTA HD antenna for $20ish because it was powered and still pricier back then (now only $10-$15 on Amazon). I have Netflix and between the OTA and Netflix my total monthly bill for internet and content is $60. I'm saving at least $50 a month for just internet and content. You can tack on another $50 a month if I actually needed a home telephone, which I don't and can't fathom needing.

Cable companies can't pivot fast enough and will continue to lose TV customers until they offer ala carte channel selection for a reasonable price. Some cable companies are coming out with ala carte apps for phone and tablet but I'm pretty sure people are fed up with $200+/month bills. I try to help all my friends get off the cable company merry go round. I know i only watched 3 or 4 channels regularly on cable tv anyway, out of 200 and the constant advertisements ruin watching experiences. 20 commercial breaks during a 2 hour movie sucks! And cable's asymmetrical download/upload speeds is pretty much crap too. DSL isn't even an option as they can't offer consistent speeds even close to cable and Fiber direct isn't an option in most areas and the cost is even more prohibitive than either cable or dsl.

I hope the situation gets better but we all know it won't...
 
I think maybe there'd be fewer cord cutters if the cable companies would actually send out 4K content. On many channels it's still not even 1080p but 1080i or 720p.

Psychonic said:
Cable companies are getting the shaft by content providers...
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The largest cable companies are also the content providers. Time/Warner and Comcast. two most hated cable companies.

AT&T / DirectTv also has content creation right?
 
It's hard to be surprised when you see how bad the current TV watching experience is....

Most popular shows are on channels you have to pay $7 a month each for, or are bundled with dozens of filler channels...

Commercials ruin the viewing experience... I swear it seems like at least 30% of the walking dead us cinnercials. It is seriously hard to follow a show where. It is constantly interrupted with cinnercials, so you work around this with a PVR / DVR and watch it later... Or you could just buy the season on Xbox, PlayStation, Google Play and watch it the next day without commercials and an expensive cable TV package...

Cable companies are aware of these cord cutting numbers, now when you try to cancel, they only give their retention department discounts they can give you if you keep cable TV, resulting in cable TV and Internet being cheaper than Internet only...

I guess we'll see, but I hardly even watch traditional TV, everything is in a perpetual rerun cycle or doesnt interest me...
 
If I could get FIOS to give me internet only for $50 a month or less, I would totally be in. I already pay for Prime and Netflix (and sometimes HBO / Showtime, when shows are on I want to watch). But they won't, because I've been a "loyal" customer for oh so many years, and those hot low price deals are for new accounts only.

Last time I tried it was literally $30 cheaper to go internet only, as opposed to triple play which includes landline phone, HD DVR, and internet. $30 freaking dollars... if I bought into Sling/Directv now/PS vue etc to get the HGTV and Food network that my wife demands, I'm back where I started. Then there is phone... our cell phones work for shit inside our house, so figure another $10+ a month for some type of IP phone.

So I continue to pay $120 a month, because FIOS internet is pretty awesome. I've had cable modem before, and that experience wasn't great... and even worse when it was raining (internet + cable TV would cut out during thunderstorms).
 
I cut the cord ten+ years ago, when DirecTV got to be over $100 a month for their 2nd bottom tier and no movie channels. New taxes and fees seemed to added every single month.
Now I just pay evil Comcast for my internet... but there are zero other competitors in my area worth mentioning. A VPN is a must... if for no other reason than to keep Comcast semi-honest and cut down on the marketing info they're selling about us.

Broadcast tv + Roku works great for us. We do sub to Netflix, Britbox and AcornTV for our Brit habit.
 
Teenyman45 said:
I think maybe there'd be fewer cord cutters if the cable companies would actually send out 4K content. On many channels it's still not even 1080p but 1080i or 720p.
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That won't happen until Broadcasters move to ATSC 3.0. It's been "in the works" for several years, but nobody has made an official transition yet, because it means they have to upgrade their entire 1080i production system (yes, brioadcasters still buy 1080i cameras TODAY).
 
I want to get rid of DirecTV since it is now about $100 per month, and I only watch 5 or 6 channels, but with being stuck on DSL at 1.5Mb streaming Netflix in SD or low HD is about all I can get. Been thinking about trying Roku but not sure I could stream it with the connection. 5 miles from town and that is the best internet I can get, my parents live 25 miles from any small town and they get 2Mb minimum because the local private telco upgraded to fiber years ago on a government grant. Everyone there in the middle of nowhere has good internet, ATT just took the grants and did who knows what with them, sure didn't upgrade any service with it.

OTA has better picture quality than the SD DirecTV I have but I need to get a rotor so I can get all the channels because most are broadcasting from 50 miles away or more.
 
BSmith said:
Not sure why you say that. With Roku, you sort of have that already. All the services appear like they are from one source. All are managed through Roku as well. I am happy with the streaming landscape and the choices I have there. No way would I ever go back to regular television.
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Even with Roku, you have to pay for Netflix, amazon, sling, and every other streaming service that you want. After awhile when you are paying $10 + $10 + $30 + $15 + $20 + $10 that starts to add up and paying $70 isn't that bad of a price then.

Psychonic said:
Cable companies are getting the shaft by content providers, ie. HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, ESPN, et al. Each of the premium content providers are forcing cable companies to buy their content in channel bundles. They won't let cable companies buy them ala carte and the bundle of channels is outrageously expensive. No cable company can afford to NOT have these premium content providers and are forced to buy and pass that cost onto end user customers. The cable companies are, of course, up charging for their channel packages and trying to force people into their service bundles, phone, cable, internet to keep their cash cow sucking at the cable company teets.

I cut the cord about 4 years ago, bought my own cable modem (refurbished and $50) so I don't have to RENT their crap for $5-$7 per month (paid for itself in 10 months). I bought an OTA HD antenna for $20ish because it was powered and still pricier back then (now only $10-$15 on Amazon). I have Netflix and between the OTA and Netflix my total monthly bill for internet and content is $60. I'm saving at least $50 a month for just internet and content. You can tack on another $50 a month if I actually needed a home telephone, which I don't and can't fathom needing.

Cable companies can't pivot fast enough and will continue to lose TV customers until they offer ala carte channel selection for a reasonable price. Some cable companies are coming out with ala carte apps for phone and tablet but I'm pretty sure people are fed up with $200+/month bills. I try to help all my friends get off the cable company merry go round. I know i only watched 3 or 4 channels regularly on cable tv anyway, out of 200 and the constant advertisements ruin watching experiences. 20 commercial breaks during a 2 hour movie sucks! And cable's asymmetrical download/upload speeds is pretty much crap too. DSL isn't even an option as they can't offer consistent speeds even close to cable and Fiber direct isn't an option in most areas and the cost is even more prohibitive than either cable or dsl.

I hope the situation gets better but we all know it won't...
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That sad part about that is that now most of the content is created by cable companies so that logic should be changing. Instead the few that own most of the stuff still fuck over everyone. Although I guess since they can and have been to make money why stop now.
 
Rahh said:
When all said and done we will wish we just had one service that gave us it all again.
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We always want everything in one nice, neat little package. Except that isn't what cable is anymore. Hasn't been for a long time. It's why Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, etc. are as big as they are now and can only get bigger from here. More content, less money.

Right now I am paying $150 a month for a 150Mbps connection and the ability to have an LotR marathon any given hour of the day. That's literally all that's on cable anymore that my wife and I can watch without feeling our IQ's plummet five minutes after the intro credits.

Once I finish closing on my house and get everything moved/transferred over there, I'm dumping the cable box unless my wife can convince me there's actually some legit reason to keep it.
 
Looking forward to the Internet price increase.

I did just get a "free" upgrade to 160Mbps. Helps me hit my 1TB cap faster.
 
bigdogchris said:
Looking forward to the Internet price increase.

I did just get a "free" upgrade to 160Mbps. Helps me hit my 1TB cap faster.
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If they aren't bat-shit crazy, they probably won't increase it too much. People will eventually just buy a 4g hotspot and an unlimited plan, since they'll be paying $60/mo+ anyway.
 
Nobu said:
If they aren't bat-shit crazy, they probably won't increase it too much. People will eventually just buy a 4g hotspot and an unlimited plan, since they'll be paying $60/mo+ anyway.
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but then when you hit that UNLIMITED cap of 22gig the 4g unlimited is... well.. limited..

Heck I hit 22 Gig a day around here :p
 
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