The “cord cutting” trend cable execs spent a decade claiming was a fad just broke another round of new records. According to Leichtman Research, major cable TV providers lost another 1.7 million subscribers last quarter, as users flock to streaming, over the air TV, TikTok, or, you know, books. Roughly 17,700 customers cut the cord every single day during the second quarter of 2023.
Over the last year (Q2 ’22 to Q2 ’23) the traditional cable TV sector lost a whopping 5,360,000 customers, compared to 4,235,000 customer defections the year earlier. The current number of U.S. households that has a cable connection sits somewhere around 46 percent, down from 73% at the end of 2017.
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Historically, a big cable company like Comcast or Charter wasn’t too hurt by “cord cutting” because it could just jack up the cost of monopolized broadband access. And while that’s still generally true; here too cable giants are seeing increased competition from community broadband (co-ops, utilities, municipalities), 5G home wireless, and phone companies belatedly upgrading to fiber.
Interestingly though, streaming TV providers also wound up losing subscribers, albeit at a much slower rate:
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Went over my friends house and there was a movie on the TV on cable. It would have taken 4 hours to watch that movie with the amount of ads they cram in. It was unwatchable. Paying to watch ads? Nah.
This is exactly why I can’t justify paying for cable nowadays, broadband only. Paying to watch ads… Blech
I’m surprised that there still people are who do.
Yeah, that was my thought as well - I can’t believe it’s so high
I know what will stop the hemorrhaging… raise prices even more and have more commercials!1!!" — Cable TV executive.
it’s crazy that about 50% pays to watch ads.
I want to watch my local NBA team and would prefer not to pirate it, cable package it is. I get enough odds and ends elsewhere in the package to juuuust justify it.
If it were $10 more a month, though…
Seriously? 46% is so damn high! I have a hard time believing that. Is it just because there are so many baby boomers still out there or what? I can’t imagine paying for commercials. The last time I had cable was 16 years ago.
A lot of those are condos where you get cable and Internet bundles together, and you don’t even have a choice. Others might be getting a bundle but only using the Internet side. I was sick with the first for years.
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I’m shocked it’s still that high.
I bet it also fluctuates pretty widely with football season. I only pay for streaming TV for football season and I know many others do too.
There is otherwise absolutely no benefit.
Recently my wife and I were talking about which streaming services we should stop paying for and we realized it’s been about 15 years since we “cut the cord.” I remembered because we decided to stop paying for Hulu (among others) and were talking about how when we first discontinued cable we wouldn’t have been able to do so without Hulu.
i had cable for reception. live in an area without adequate reception of ‘local’ stations without tall antennas and boosters. had it. they raise the price and raise the price, and move channels to separate ‘tiers’ that cost even more. well, they did it one too many times.
of course two months after, and having gotten used to it not on my bill anymore… they go and do the last bit of the summary in op… they raised the price of internet.
