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While cable operators continue to deny cord cutting is real, their marketing departments think otherwise and are responding with slimmed down cable TV packages showcasing premium movie channels at a non-premium price.
This week, Time Warner Cable began offering a $10 add-on video package of over-the-air major network stations for new customers in Manhattan signing up for 50/5Mbps broadband service ($39.95 a month alone on a one year promotion in TWC Maxx markets). Oh did we forget to mention that $10 also includes both HBO and Showtime — the same networks Time Warner sells to everyone else for about $16.95 a month each?
At $10 a month, the package is a steal if you are still interested in local live/linear TV and movie channels. XFINITY Stream for Comcast is comparable, but Comcast extracts $15.99 a month for almost the same thing.
Time Warner Cable is obviously targeting disinterested Millennials that might otherwise skip television or consider the $20 Sling TV package instead.
But the cable company is downplaying the package and its price.
Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus likes to remind investors at least 80 percent of Time Warner customers still subscribe to the big 200+ channel cable TV package, and Time Warner has hardly been a pioneer of “skinny bundles” that cut down the TV package to just the essentials.
Despite those assertions, the number of Americans willing to drop cable television continues to increase… and fast. Convergence Consulting notes the industry lost 283,000 video customers in 2014 and 1.1 million in 2015 — a four-fold increase. Convergence estimated at least another 1.1 million will cut the cable TV cord this year in what could become “the new normal.”
Video consumers are turning instead to on-demand, online viewing, which can provide commercial-free and binge viewing opportunities. Both Millennials and Generation X viewers are trending towards shows, not channels and networks, and many would never know (and fewer still care) what channel they were watching without the identity bug perpetually attached to the lower right of the screen.
Eventually, cable television service will likely occupy a part of a fat IP-pipe free-for-all, where viewers can still watch linear programming if they wish, but are more likely going to customize a much more personal viewing experience online instead.
I don’t know why they insist on having broadcast stations as part of the minimum package.
You can get the broadcast stations with much better quality with an antenna, so there is no point in paying for an inferior copy of the the cable system. Broadcast stations are not the most expensive part of the package, but letting customers opt out would, I think, make the retransmission impasses go away.
You’ve obviously never tried to get reception in Manhattan. It’s very difficult to get reliable coverage with an antenna in Manhattan, and will vary depending on what side of the building your apartment is, what floor, etc. It’s not like you can just stick a big antenna in your attic or on your roof. And in other areas, you can easily be too far away to receive all the channels.
@Elyrickel, I’ve got no problem with people having the option to get some or all broadcast stations via cable or some other medium. However, I do have a problem with people having to pay it to get any stations they do want. Manhattan is an important place but too often it is the tail that wags the dog. It’s hard to find a good cup of coffee in Manhattan, for instance, because Starbucks figures if they saturate Manhattan, Wall Street types will assume the whole country is full of Starbucks like that, so it is a cheap way to keep… Read more »
How much does $10/month become once you tack on equipment fees, other fees & charges, and taxes? I can’t imagine it being much less than $30.
LOL. There are a few of us out here in flyover country that get digital TV signals just fine.