1.7 Million Cable TV Users Cut The Cord in 2016 Pay TV providers lost another 319,000 net cable customers last quarter as cord cutting saw its "fastest quarterly acceleration on record" according to one analyst. While some cable providers like Comcast had small to modest growth (Comcast added just 80,000 pay TV users on the quarter), other companies like Charter didn't fare quite as well (Charter lost 50,000 on the quarter). Other companies (Dish, AT&T) continued to lose traditional TV customers, but padded their losses by including less profitable streaming video customers in their totals.

MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett estimated the net loss last quarter for the industry at around 319,000 subscribers The industry saw a net loss of 1.7 million subscribers in 2016, a notable decline from the 1.1 million subscribers lost by the industry last year. This 1.7% drop, Moffett declared, was "the fastest rate of decline on record.” "With the results now in from all of the largest operators, it is clear that cord-cutting of legacy distribution services -- that is, without including OTT-delivered virtual MVPD bundles like Sling TV and DirecTV Now (and soon, YouTube TV) -- has at last meaningfully accelerated," Moffett said. "While there admittedly remain a few smaller operators left to report, the pay-TV business (as defined by traditional providers) ended 2016 shrinking at 1.7% per year, its fastest quarterly acceleration on record." These losses are expected to grow steadily as streaming becomes normalized. The field continues to expand with YouTube's recent announcement of a new live TV service, and Hulu is expected to launch its own live streaming service in the coming weeks. These losses are expected to grow steadily as streaming becomes normalized. The field continues to expand with YouTube's recent announcement of a new live TV service, and Hulu is expected to launch its own live streaming service in the coming weeks.







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Most recommended from 39 comments



Zenit

The system is the solution

Premium Member

join:2012-05-07

Purcellville, VA 2 edits 12 recommendations Zenit Premium Member Its a huge trend.



OTA in a good chunk of the country will provide a decent selection of things to watch. In our area it is great, but I artificially crippled my selection in order to pick up NHK World.



Sling works quite well. While the picture quality and channel selection are nothing to write home about, it provides something to put on when you don't know what to stream. The channel selection is improving slowly. Sling's price model is excellent. There are legal free linear TV streaming services out there too; Pluto TV provides a selection of news channels (RT, Sky News, MSNBC, Bloomberg) along with a lot of other random stuff for the great price of $0. Many international channels (NHK, RT, France24, Sky News, CCTV) offer free streaming via their sites or apps.



We cut the cord completely and dropped to Verizon ADSL2+ which has mostly met our needs at 7Mbps. It's being bumped to 13-14Mbps on Wednesday, which will open up the door for 1080P streaming while leaving leftover bandwidth for work & gaming. Who would have thought old unloved Bell System era wires could push 14Mbps? If your willing to cut your bandwidth, completely cutting the cord is feasible. I love super fast connections but not when they cost a ton of money. Sometimes you have to teach your local high bandwidth monopoly a lesson. Those of you with a choice of FTTP or VDSL2 vs HFC are lucky.



Our telecom bill was slashed significantly by dumping Comcast and their never ending fee hell march. $55/mo for VZ POTS + HSI vs $120+ for a Comcast bundle. Comcast would not give me a deal on standalone HSI, otherwise their $39/mo for 1 year 25Mbps tier would be a very attractive option.



The linear Cable TV and Satellite companies can save their product by lowering the price and offering what people actually want; easy to understand bills without fee soup. When our Comcast triple play was $110/mo we were happy. The service was acceptable, perhaps even good for the price. At $160? Too high. Charging $10/mo for "DVR Service", $10/mo for the first DVR box, and $10/mo for an "HD Technology Fee" is backwards thinking and hostile to the consumer.



EDIT:



The only areas where legacy TV will be 100% immune to competitive pressure are rural areas without wireline internet, or with slow wireline internet under 7Mbps. Satellite TV will continue to have a market eternally in the forgotten territory of rural America, coast to coast. Some people may put up with just OTA, but when you barely get internet your alternatives for entertainment shrink drastically. Satellite TV provides a way around low cellular or WISP caps.



EDIT 2:



Thought I would include the amount of bandwidth usage post-cord cutting - mostly 720p streaming. The screenshot below is for the past 70 days:







Roughly 12gb per day, not as high as one would think it would be. Moving to 12-15Mbps and using more 1080P streaming should drastically increase daily usage. Verizon DSL technically has a cap of 1.5TB per month, but enforcement is very lax unless your DSLAM is overloaded or fed by a lame bundle of T-1s. I know very few people who still have a linear Cable TV/Satellite product. It has become too expensive, even for people with large salaries. One of the most ardent supporters of linear CATV in the family has cut his Comcast plan to just HSI because Comcast wanted over $200/mo, with most of that cost coming from TV; just 1 X1 HD DVR and 2 DTA's. His bill is now $100/mo for 200Mbps Blast + about $30 for all the different streaming services.OTA in a good chunk of the country will provide a decent selection of things to watch. In our area it is great, but I artificially crippled my selection in order to pick up NHK World.Sling works quite well. While the picture quality and channel selection are nothing to write home about, it provides something to put on when you don't know what to stream. The channel selection is improving slowly. Sling's price model is excellent. There are legal free linear TV streaming services out there too; Pluto TV provides a selection of news channels (RT, Sky News, MSNBC, Bloomberg) along with a lot of other random stuff for the great price of $0. Many international channels (NHK, RT, France24, Sky News, CCTV) offer free streaming via their sites or apps.We cut the cord completely and dropped to Verizon ADSL2+ which has mostly met our needs at 7Mbps. It's being bumped to 13-14Mbps on Wednesday, which will open up the door for 1080P streaming while leaving leftover bandwidth for work & gaming. Who would have thought old unloved Bell System era wires could push 14Mbps? If your willing to cut your bandwidth, completely cutting the cord is feasible. I love super fast connections but not when they cost a ton of money. Sometimes you have to teach your local high bandwidth monopoly a lesson. Those of you with a choice of FTTP or VDSL2 vs HFC are lucky.Our telecom bill was slashed significantly by dumping Comcast and their never ending fee hell march. $55/mo for VZ POTS + HSI vs $120+ for a Comcast bundle. Comcast would not give me a deal on standalone HSI, otherwise their $39/mo for 1 year 25Mbps tier would be a very attractive option.The linear Cable TV and Satellite companies can save their product by lowering the price and offering what people actually want; easy to understand bills without fee soup. When our Comcast triple play was $110/mo we were happy. The service was acceptable, perhaps even good for the price. At $160? Too high. Charging $10/mo for "DVR Service", $10/mo for the first DVR box, and $10/mo for an "HD Technology Fee" is backwards thinking and hostile to the consumer.EDIT:The only areas where legacy TV will be 100% immune to competitive pressure are rural areas without wireline internet, or with slow wireline internet under 7Mbps. Satellite TV will continue to have a market eternally in the forgotten territory of rural America, coast to coast. Some people may put up with just OTA, but when you barely get internet your alternatives for entertainment shrink drastically. Satellite TV provides a way around low cellular or WISP caps.EDIT 2:Thought I would include the amount of bandwidth usage post-cord cutting - mostly 720p streaming. The screenshot below is for the past 70 days: existenz

join:2014-02-12 11 recommendations existenz Member Just cut the cord yesterday Switched to PS Vue after trialing several. PS Vue has most mature interface methinks and with DVR but Sling will release cloud DVR soon as eventually DTV Now. And YouTube TV getting into OTT game with unlimited DVR timeframe. Once there are 3-4 mature OTT players, trad PayTV should wither quickly or at least forced to change its model. Content providers don't have any reason to protect trad PayTV model at this point. Is time to embrace OTT.