The top 10 service providers in the United States collectively lost over 1.25 million paid television customers in the first three months of 2019, providing further evidence that cord-cutting is accelerating.

Multiscreen Index estimates if that trend continues, an average of 14,000 Americans cancel their paid cable or satellite television service daily.

AT&T suffered the greatest losses, primarily from its satellite television service DirecTV. More than a half-million satellite customers canceled service in the first quarter of the year. AT&T lost another 89,000 streaming customers as news spread that the service was increasing prices and restricting generous promotions to attract new subscribers. DISH Network, DirecTV’s satellite competitor, also lost more than 250,000 customers.

Many cable television providers announced this quarter they would no longer fret about the loss of cable TV customers, and many have dropped retention efforts that included deeply discounted service. As a result, customers are finding it easier than ever to cancel service. Comcast lost 107,000 TV customers, while Charter Spectrum lost 152,000. Spectrum recently increased the price of its Broadcast TV Fee to $11.99 a month and has pulled back on promotions discounting television service.

“There were losses across the top 10 television services in the United States, with even the DirecTV Now online service losing customers following previous heavy promotion. Between them, they lost over one-and-a-quarter million subscribers in three months. They still command a significant number of customers but the rate of attrition has increased,” said Dr. William Cooper, the editor of the informitv Multiscreen Index.

The total figures for the quarter show roughly 81.90 million Americans are still paying one of the top-10 providers for cable or satellite television service, amounting to less than 70% of television homes — a significant drop. Privately held Cox Communications is excluded because it does not report subscriber numbers or trends.

Verizon’s FiOS expansion is still, still, still, still, and still dead.

Despite the passage of favorable legislation deregulating the state’s largest telecom companies, Verizon has thumbed its nose at New Jersey’s efforts to convince the company to expand its fiber-to-the-home service.

“Verizon does not plan to expand its FiOS service footprint,” wrote Tanya Davis, a Verizon franchise service manager for FiOS in New Jersey and New York. “The company remains focused on continuing to meet its franchise obligations, and delivering competitive services, and enhanced consumer choices, where the services are available.”

More than a decade after passing the 2006 Cable TV Act in New Jersey, designed to convince telecom companies to compete more vigorously with each other, Verizon remains uninterested in further expanding its fiber network in New Jersey and beyond.

After successfully lobbying the state to adopt a statewide cable TV franchise policy, making life easier for Verizon by not requiring the company to negotiate a contract with each town serviced, Verizon suddenly stopped caring after announcing a pullback in further FiOS expansion in 2010. The change in heart appears to have started at the top. Then CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who approved FiOS, retired and was replaced by Lowell McAdam, who preferred Verizon invest mostly in its wireless networks.

Vergano

As a result, New Jersey has a telecom industry-friendly deregulatory policy in place with nothing to show for it.

“People want to see competition,” Wayne Mayor Christopher Vergano told the North Jersey Record, citing complaints his office has received about Altice USA’s Optimum service. “Over the years, they’ve seen their cable bills increase. We’re trying to give residents options.”

Wayne’s Township Council passed a resolution asking state lawmakers to review the 2006 Cable TV Act to find a way to coerce Verizon to do more fiber upgrades in the state. In 2006, then Gov. John Corzine got Verizon to commit to wiring 70 towns across New Jersey, and Wayne was not one of them.

Verizon agreed to expand its fiber network to all county seats, as well as areas with a population density in excess of 7,111 residents per square mile.

New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities (BPU) is still allowed to report on Verizon’s progress, but little else, thanks to deregulation. A BPU report stated deployment of FiOS slowed to a crawl between 2010-2013, when only three new towns were reached with fiber upgrades. What little interest Verizon still had in FiOS expansion ended after 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, after which Verizon ended expansion in urban areas of New Jersey as well.

“It’s solely Verizon’s discretion to add municipalities to its system-wide franchise,” a BPU spokesman told the newspaper.

Prior to deregulation, utility boards and regulators could compel companies to offer service instead of shrugging their shoulders and telling state lawmakers ‘it’s all up to Verizon.’

Charter Spectrum will soon charge you for a full month of service, even if you downgrade or cancel in the middle of a billing cycle, ending a decades-old practice of issuing a partial month credit for dropped services you no longer want or need.

Tucked into customers’ May billing statements, Charter Spectrum announced it intends to stop giving partial refunds for service effective June 23, 2019:

The financial benefit to Charter Spectrum is substantial, because customers will be forced to pay for a full month of service even if they cancel during the first week of a new billing cycle. The cable industry has been gradually shifting away from issuing partial month credits after other telecom companies, notably Windstream and wireless operators, moved to “full month billing – no refunds for partial month” billing.

Cablevision/Optimum was among the first cable companies to stop issuing credits for disconnects that occur before the billing cycle ends. It led to a 2017 class action case against Cablevision, now owned by Altice USA, filed by an ex-customer. A 2018 ruling dismissed the class action case, compelling the plaintiff to use mandatory arbitration, required of all new subscribers. The final disposition of the case is unknown. Charter Spectrum maintains a similar clause in its own terms and conditions.

Your time is up. It may have been one, two, or if you are especially lucky — three years since you signed up for Charter Spectrum service. But your temporary reprieve from the high price of cable is over.

The bad news arrives in a letter:

Thank you for being a Spectrum customer. When you signed up for your services, you received a promotional discounted rate on your bill. This promotion is coming to an end. However, as a valued customer we are pleased to offer a new promotion for an additional year.

Spectrum certainly is pleased. You may not be. To avoid shocking you too much, the company does not provide a new “out the door” price. They wait until they send you your first post-promotion bill. The letter also does not remind you what you were paying, it breaks out the price of each component service of your bundle for the following 12 months in an effort to lessen the surprise.

For most Spectrum customers on a basic, new customer promotion lasting one year, the rate change is substantial — once you add it all up.

For a customer subscribed to Standard Spectrum TV with two DVR boxes, Internet Ultra (400/20 Mbps), and Spectrum Voice, here is what you can expect (prices and promotions may vary):

• Standard Spectrum TV: Your promotional rate of $54.98 will rise to $86.97, an increase of $31.99.
• Internet Ultra: The promotional triple-play bundled price of $54.99 increases to $74.99, up $20.
• Spectrum Voice: The bundled price of $29.99 will decrease to $19.99, a savings of $10.

Spectrum Voice, Charter’s digital home phone line product, is the most vulnerable part of their triple play bundle. Scores of customers drop landline service at the end of a promotion because, in many cases, having the landline as part of a triple play package either came free (or almost free), or actually reduced the price of the bundle. By offering a lower rate going forward, Charter is making a token effort to convince customers not to abandon voice service, but as the company’s landline disconnects continue to accelerate, it clearly isn’t an effective tactic.

The letter also ignores Charter’s ever-rising Broadcast TV Fee, now $11.99 a month, and is compulsory for all cable TV customers. So the old monthly promotional rate of $155.75 for this particular package will rise to about $193.94, a difference of $38.19 a month. After a second 12 months, prices generally reset even higher to the published “rack rate.”

Since Charter took control of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, efforts by customers to negotiate a lower rate got much tougher, but the company’s customer retention efforts have stepped up slightly over the last year. You should still expect to pay more than you did before, but it is often possible to negotiate a slightly better deal by threatening to cancel service. Some customers report more success discussing the matter in a Spectrum cable store, cable modem and set top boxes in hand. But do not be surprised if they shrug their shoulders and agree to your request to cancel your account on the spot. Spectrum, like many cable companies, has gotten pickier about who they offer promotions to, and are willing to say goodbye to barely profitable customers, especially those only subscribed to cable TV.

Ad breaks on Pluto TV are not always elegant. This screen can appear for a minute or more instead of commercials.

Viacom is not wasting any time remaking Pluto TV into a more formidable possible cable-TV replacement, after acquiring the streaming service in March for $340 million. Now the service is adding Pluto-branded versions of Viacom’s cable networks that anyone can watch for free.

Unlike Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime Video, Pluto TV has no subscription fees and is entirely supported by commercial advertising.

Much like in the early days of cable television, many of the networks on the Pluto lineup still feature second-rate programming or niche interest, low-budget original programming. But Viacom obviously intends to change that perception, launching special Pluto-branded versions of name-brand cable networks like BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and others.

In an effort to protect their contractual relationships with cable and satellite providers that pay substantial fees for Viacom’s cable networks, Pluto TV’s free versions are not exactly the same as what you’d find on your cable or satellite dial. But many of the most popular shows found on those networks also can be found on Pluto TV’s Viacom channels, some at different times or perhaps a day or two later.

Recognizing many viewers have turned away from live, linear television in favor of on-demand viewing, Pluto TV has also created binge channels that will “pop up” from time to time, allowing viewers to catch up with earlier seasons of popular shows or see a current show’s missed episodes on channels where they repeat continuously.

Because Viacom also has an extensive content library of its own, it was not difficult to assemble a range of “Signature Channels,” which group shows from multiple networks together on a series of theme-based channels. For example, CMT Westerns feature reruns of classic western TV shows seen on various networks. Several MTV networks target different audiences, like MTV Guy Code, MTV Teen, and MTV Dating. Comedy Central gets a side-network as well. Comedy Central Pluto offers many of the shows you’d find on the primary cable network, plus there is Comedy Central Stand-Up, which features continuous stand-up comedy routines.

Although Pluto TV retains the familiar concept of “channel” numbers, grouped by theme, Viacom is clearly starting to shift the viewing experience more towards individual shows instead of networks.

There are now so many individual channels on the Pluto platform, we won’t list them here. It is easier just to visit and view for yourself.

Pluto TV by Viacom is clearly a work still in progress. There are some significant issues. Commercial advertising inserts are clumsy and often cut shows off mid-sentence on some channels. Sometimes, an extended “we’ll be right back” screen appears where advertisements normally would. There is also no built-in way to record shows for time shifted viewing, and Pluto TV has so far refused to offer an online program guide beyond the next two hours of viewing, so you cannot easily know what shows will be aired when.

Other weaknesses are in sports and news. The network news channels are identical to those you can see on their respective websites by yourself, and a number of advocacy news channels including Newsmax, The Young Turks, and RT America are poor replacements for typical cable news channels. CNN’s presence on Pluto TV is limited to a curated playlist of stories airing on the network that day, and Sky News, Bloomberg, and Weathernation are not comparable to MSNBC, CNBC, or The Weather Channel.

Sports programming is mostly talk shows about sports and events larger sports networks would never cover. Pluto Sports also runs movies about sports.

Still, Pluto TV is free, and with the huge number of channels, chances are excellent you will find something to watch without much trouble.