
Pay TV Just Lost One Million Subscribers in Biggest Quarterly Loss Ever - sharkweek
https://exstreamist.com/pay-tv-just-lost-one-million-subscribers-in-biggest-quarterly-loss-ever/
======
rland
We are at the point where each consumer's spending on Cable TV is now
transitioning to "Streaming Services" a.k.a. Cable 2.0. In the end "Cord
cutting" will not save money; it will simply mean that instead of paying Cox
or Comcast, the consumer pays monthly for Netflix, Disney, Hulu, HBO etc.

When there are too many separate streaming services (that there are too many
$10 monthlies from each service coming to the house) they will be bundled
together and sold as "TV," most likely by Cox or Comcast.

This will all be surrounded by a huge amount of marketing, but the bill will
be identical: around $60/mo for the basic package and $120/mo for the deluxe
package. And everything that was old will be new again.

And watch too, as ads find there way in somewhere in the process. They are
already in the form of aggressive product placement, and some paid streaming
services (Hulu) are rolling them out.

~~~
otakucode
Cord cutting won't save money? I've seen this said multiple places, but it
seems inane. A BASIC cable TV subscription costs over $100/mo. Streaming
services are typically $10/mo or so. And they offer radically more content, at
radically higher quality, with radically higher convenience, etc. Who out
there is in need of 10 simultaneous streaming subscriptions?

You are right, though, that Cox, Comcast, etc will likely bundle together
Netflix, Hulu, Facebook Video, YouTube, etc and try to "sell" it, while
aggressively throttling data usage. The fact that distribution of content is
now worthless, and distribution is the primary value proposition of their
business model won't stop them from making money so long as the government is
on their side.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A BASIC cable TV subscription costs over $100/mo.

No, it doesn't.

> Streaming services are typically $10/mo or so.

Streaming multichannel video distribution platform (MVDP) services that are
most comparable to a cable subscription, with live TV channels (YouTubeTV,
SlingTV, PlaystationTV, DirecTV Now, Hulu with Live TV) have some variation in
pricing, but the bottom is _way_ above $10/mo. ~$40/mo seems to be typical
base fee, comparable with basic cable plans (U-Verse Basic is $19.99/mo +
$10/mo for HD.)

$10-15/mo. streaming services are typically more comparable in what they offer
to a single premium cable channels, but without live programming and sometimes
with little better on-demand catalog. Some of them are exactly equivalent to
such a channel (e.g., HBO Now).

In addition, streaming services count against your broadband services data
cap, which may necessitate additional charges for uncapped service (and
require sufficient broadband bandwidth, which may also force a higher tiers of
service than you otherwise would use—cable/satellite mostly subsumes all of
that.)

> The fact that distribution of content is now worthless, and distribution is
> the primary value proposition of their business model

Essentislly all the cable companies are both (owned by, or own) major content
owners _and_ major broadband (often both fixed and mobile) ISPs, they often
_also_ own or co-own one or more streaming services (sometimes both MVDP and
“single channel” style services). They are making money no matter what route
you choose to the content.

------
kevin_b_er
This is why we see the ISPs engaging in Net Discrimination. They want to
extract more money from both ends through intentional degradation of cord
cutting services.

------
phendrenad2
Recently cancelled my service. I realized that I was paying for something
that's already ad-supported. Why am I oaying to eatch ads? Doesn't make sense.

~~~
Analemma_
You’re paying twice because the fees pay for the delivery
service/infrastructure, while the ads pay for the content. They are made by
different companies. You might as well ask why you have to pay for Netflix
when you’re already paying your ISP.

~~~
bootsz
Originally cable didn’t have ads:
[https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-
inv...](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-
commercials.html)

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes, cable had ads from day one (as the first sentence of your article hints
when it notes that cable was never conceived as ad free.) Originally, cable
carried the exact same (ad supported) broadcast channels as were available by
terrestrial broadcast; it was a way to get them when you weren't in a location
with good reception (which was fairly common, at the time cable originated,
places that weren't close to a major market center with a flat line of sight
to it; stations weren't expending more power to broadcast than was needed to
meet the big markets.)

That article is actually quite odd; the then-existing cable-only channels it
mentions were mostly also commercially supported from day one, the ones they
report on considering commercial models are channels preparing to go online,
not then-operational ad-free channels. While they point to a public
expectation of ad-free cable, they don't point to any actual history outside
of premium channels (that generally remain ad-free), and other than public
access channels, few non-premium cable channels were ever ad-free (except PBS
broadcast channels carried by cable operators, when PBS had public funding
that allowed it to operate ad free, but that had nothing to do with cable.)

~~~
masonic
The ARTS Channel[0] is ad-free in the USA.

[0] [http://www.classicartsshowcase.org](http://www.classicartsshowcase.org)

