The “cord cutting” trend cable execs spent a decade claiming was a fad just broke another round of new records. According to Leichtman Research, major cable TV providers lost another 1.7 million subscribers last quarter, as users flock to streaming, over the air TV, TikTok, or, you know, books. Roughly 17,700 customers cut the cord every single day during the second quarter of 2023.
Over the last year (Q2 ’22 to Q2 ’23) the traditional cable TV sector lost a whopping 5,360,000 customers, compared to 4,235,000 customer defections the year earlier. The current number of U.S. households that has a cable connection sits somewhere around 46 percent, down from 73% at the end of 2017.
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Historically, a big cable company like Comcast or Charter wasn’t too hurt by “cord cutting” because it could just jack up the cost of monopolized broadband access. And while that’s still generally true; here too cable giants are seeing increased competition from community broadband (co-ops, utilities, municipalities), 5G home wireless, and phone companies belatedly upgrading to fiber.
Interestingly though, streaming TV providers also wound up losing subscribers, albeit at a much slower rate:
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i had cable for reception. live in an area without adequate reception of ‘local’ stations without tall antennas and boosters. had it. they raise the price and raise the price, and move channels to separate ‘tiers’ that cost even more. well, they did it one too many times.
of course two months after, and having gotten used to it not on my bill anymore… they go and do the last bit of the summary in op… they raised the price of internet.
I’m stunned internet costs haven’t exploded through the roof. Cable companies are not going to take a loss like this, quarter after quarter, so where is the money coming from?!
They need their monopoly to survive, which is granted municipality by municipality.