Home » Consumer News » Currently Reading:

Cord Cutting Could Hit 2 Million This Year: 6,200 Americans Cancel Cable TV Every Day

Phillip Dampier August 19, 2015 Consumer News 3 Comments
courtesy: abcnews

Time to cut the cable TV bill down to size.

Cord-cutting, the often denied and downplayed practice of canceling cable television service, is becoming trendy in the United States, with up to two million customers likely to turn their backs on pay TV in 2015.

The Financial Times reports about 566,000 customers have canceled cable television between April and June on this year. The subscriber losses are occurring at most cable operators except for Verizon, which picked up a few new customers during the last quarter.

That translates into 6,200 customers a day dropping service, despite aggressive efforts by providers to rescue their business. For at least 10 years, cable television prices have risen at nearly twice the rate of inflation, helping give the industry a public black eye. But with few alternatives until recently, consumers bared their teeth but paid the bill. With the advent of online video services and digital over the air television, that is finally changing.

cord cutToday, customers in or near large cities can watch an average of 12-24 over the air stations and digital “sub-channels” for free. Add a Netflix and Hulu subscription and customers can watch “on-demand” shows as well.

Some cable companies have resisted dramatic rate increases realizing they will continue to bleed customers with every rate hike notice. But many others have resorted to tricks like adding surcharges at the bottom of the bill. Many cable companies today include sports programming and broadband TV surcharges of $1-4 each, hoping customers will blame someone else for their higher bill. Most surcharges are not covered by customer retention or new customer discounts, either, and those fees are rising.

Time Warner Cable added a $2.75 sports surcharge on many customer bills in addition to the Broadcast TV surcharge. Most providers charge between $2-6. Within three years, customers can expect to see surcharges hiked to the $8 range.

As the cord cutting numbers add up, broadcast executives may still be in denial, but Wall Street isn’t. Traders did some cutting of their own, slashing $50 billion off the value of media stocks after major entertainment companies reported declining ad revenues and expected poorer financial results in the future.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
3 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
tacitus
tacitus
8 years ago

It doesn’t help that the cable companies are not up front about the costs of their cable TV services. I’m a cord cutter, and just received a offer of $10/month to add TV to my internet service. Problem is, that $10/month doesn’t include any of the fees of taxes, and they don’t tell you anywhere in the offer what those additional fees will be, only that there will be some. You actually have to go to a webpage whose URL is in the small print to find out more information, and even then, what you will actually pay isn’t quoted… Read more »

tacitus
tacitus
8 years ago

With HBO and Showtime now offering direct internet-based subscriptions, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a spurt of cord cutting among those who only had basic cable because they wanted those channels. I’m a cricket fan, and would have loved to subscribe to Willow TV in past years to watch some international cricket, but just to get to the point where I could add Willow TV to my package would have cost me over $50/month plus the cost of the channel. Now, Willow TV offers their channel via YouTube for $15/month, and I’m likely to sign up for a… Read more »

BillXperts.com
8 years ago

Increasing cable bills, new alternative solutions (Hulu, SlingTV…), unfair practices from cable companies…
Seems like consumers can’t bear this anymore.
Still some good cable deals available though… especially if you let us negotiate with your providers.

The BillXperts.com team
https://www.billxperts.com/

Search This Site:

Contributions:

Recent Comments:

Your Account:

Stop the Cap!