Analyst firm MoffettNathanson put together a new cord-cutting report, and things are bad. Pay-TV providers lost an estimated 762,000 pay-TV subscribers over the first three months of this year - five times more than they lost during the same period last year. To make matters worse, Q1 has historically been a strong season for pay TV.
"For the better part of 15 years, pundits have predicted that cord-cutting was the future," an apocalyptic Craig Moffett wrote. "Well, the future has arrived."
Comcast was the only major provider to buck the trend, but judging by the way things look, that winning streak won't last.
Quote:They'll just jack up the price of internet connectivity. They still own you.
That is definitely what will happen. Actually, it already is happening.
Quote:They'll just jack up the price of internet connectivity. They still own you.
That is definitely what will happen. Actually, it already is happening.
"Yes, but:" If they do that they create room for smaller guys to come in and underprice them. Small guys can't easily come in and compete in pay TV because you have to be able to get agreements with the content providers (media companies). But transferring bits is a technical issue, not a political one. Politics can interfere with cable to the house, but not satellite or terrestrial wireless. There are people getting residential internet with those technologies today, but not many because the cable and phone companies generally offer a better all-around deal. Once they don't anymore (after price hikes), a resurgence of home internet competition is very likely.