Cord-cutting Report: Streaming Services Will Be 25% of the Pay-TV market by 2023 (fastcompany.com) 65
UBS is increasing its outlook for streaming TV services such as Sling TV and DirecTV Now, estimating that such services will make up 25% of the pay-TV market in five years. Meanwhile, USB expects traditional TV subscriptions to decline 4.1% over the next year alone. From the report: Here are some other takeaways from UBS's report: Although Google hasn't disclosed subscriber numbers for YouTube TV, UBS estimates that the service has 750,000 subscribers after one year. That would put it just behind Hulu (800,000 subscribers), which launched around the same time. Sling TV remains in the lead with 2.3 million subscribers after three years, and DirecTV Now is catching up with 1.5 million subscribers in 16 months. PlayStation Vue still has just 700,000 subscribers after three years. A survey by UBS found that one in three respondents were likely or very likely to subscribe to a streaming TV bundle. (Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV were the top two potential picks among these respondents, suggesting that they'll play catch up with their rivals over time.)
Cord cutting is the dumbest term (Score:3, Interesting)
Still have an internet connection to the cable company?
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With no network neutrality things can get bad.
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That's not cord as in the physical cable, it's cord as in umbilical. People are so dependent on pay TV that it seems to some like cutting off a lifeline.
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Depends. I have only one inexpensive streaming service (Amazon doesn't count because I don't use it at all) and get most of my entertainment from free sources like antenna. Therefore, I don't really consider myself hooked.
But otherwise, I agree with you. Bragging that you're a cord cutter while having subscriptions to 3+ pay TV services is just silly.
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Still have an internet connection to the cable company?
Well, my Internet connection is through a microwave relay. There's a cord from the microwave antenna to my router, I suppose.
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Nope. Hi speed WiFi. 20/7 speeds. No Netflix, no Hulu, no YouTube Red or TV, no Amazon TV. I watch YouTube videos from time to time, music videos, Russian car crash videos, instructional videos. I have a few shows I enjoy like Walking Dead and Big Bang Thoery, and wait for the DVD release or pick up the old shows I liked from back in the day.
[John]
Priced Out (Score:2)
$200 Comcast bill is what made me end the Cable Box.
If it was at a reasonable price I wouldn't have bothered.
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Absolutely this!! I had no complaint with Spectrum Warner - until it passed the $200 mark.
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Yup, pulled this plug a month ago. I was paying almost $200 for a fat ass cable TV connection, landline phone, and capped internet. This was in addition to my subscription services of netflix, hulu, and curiosity stream.
The landline phone doesn't even have phone hooked up to it. As for the cable connection, we had unplugged the cable box 6 months ago and never bothered to hook it back up. The rest of my family watches netflix, hulu, or youtube. and I just watch the curiosity stream and youtube.
So
package deal (Score:5, Insightful)
"Cord cutting" will not overtake cable as long as the only way to get a reasonable price for internet is to "bundle" your service with pay TV. And it's only going to get a lot worse with all the big mergers that the corrupt Trump administration is handing out to corporations.
You can cut all the cords you want, but you're still going to be paying a cable bill, even if you only watch Netflix and Hulu. Two companies providing all the internet bandwidth and TV content will never be anything like "competition".
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If you have DSL in your home market that isn't AT&T (who also owns pay TV services), that will keep the prices lower than they would be otherwise.
I'm paying far less for Internet only than I would for Internet plus basic pay TV with my cable provider. And I actually live in an AT&T market. You can add in the cost of Netflix, but I would have that even if I still had pay TV. Antennas are cheap and they still work for the big five networks.
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Some areas have 2 cable cos + telco vrad / fiber to the home.
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I only have one choice: AT&T (Score:2)
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Customers want options (Score:3)
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The streaming services have one big advantage that nobody is talking about. No contracts. I was locked into a 2 year contract with comast for tv, phone, and internet service. But with a service like psvue or youtube tv if a series comes out that I actually want to watch I can just sign up and pay for that season. Then just drop it till next season.
UBS or USB? (Score:1)
As the title says, you'd think the editors could keep track of the difference between UBS and USB.
Oh, who am I kidding.
Besides, as a non-American, is the UBS acronym something people should just know what stands for? Useless Bitchy Surveys?
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UBS is a large Swiss bank, and an investment powerhouse. There's nothing American about them. You'd have to be living under a rock not to know who they are.
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Unfortunately I don't work in the banking and investment industry, so no, I honestly haven't heard about them. What does a bank have to do with TV watching habits? It seems somewhat non-intuitive to look for bank names in the context of this article.
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Well, part of their business is to provide investment services and advice, and this involves market analytics. They're betting the cable companies are going to continue to lose their grasp on eyeballs. It's more or less saying, "FWIW we think the cable TV companies aren't going to be losing eyeballs to streaming services at least this fast - consider that when deciding where to invest your money."
It's not really even "cord cutting" anymore really (Score:1)
The cable companies and movie makers have basically all decided to make their own shitty services that unless you're the kind of person who literally watches stuff from maybe 1-2 different media corporations basically ends up being cable all over again.
ISP Costs + Hulu (which still shows ads unless you pay even more) + Netflix + Any particular movie channel + Amazon + etc etc doesn't really end up adding up to much less than a larger cable package, and it sure as fuck won't stay that way as all these monstr
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grow up and stop watching foreign cartoons just because there are boobies in them, you pervert.
IQ test (Score:2)
It's not cord cutting (Score:3)
It's not cord cutting, it's just tying a new cord. Death to network TV and all hail your new Netflix/Youtube masters!
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Aggregation is just an attempt to return to the old bundling and the control it provides allowing them to brag about providing 100s of "channels" that deliver nothing for one "low" price.
And to perpetuate those precious ratings, particularly prime time and young adult demographic, now made up of feckless millennials.
I don't believe it (Score:2)
I'm not buying it, as in I don't believe that this is a true representation of where the market is headed. I'm sure the cable companies would like it to go this way but my experience is that streaming TV bundles like Sling TV are not better then cable with a DVR.
The people have already spoken with the huge number of Netflix subscribers. We like to pick a show and watch that show without commercials. Live events can be streamed through YouTube, Facebook or ESPN. I don't want a bundle of streamed "channels" w
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I went with Playstaton VUE because it has a built in DVR capability from the get go.
I thought I saw where SlingTV and DIRECTTV's streaming services both were adding DVR capability?
I bought a TIVO, lifetime subscription built in for my OTA recordings...between that, PSVUE, Netflix and my Amazon PRIME that I get with my PRIME....I'm more than set and I never miss a program I wanna watch....
This seems like another lowball esitmate (Score:3)
This to me seems like another lowball estimate from an industry that doesn't seem to have an appreciation for how fast things change nowadays.
I would expect this to be somewhere much closer to 50% based on what I see. Every person I know under 40 cut the cord a long time ago. The only people who hold out are sports junkies, and even they are dropping like flies now that you can get legal season pass streaming options for some of these.
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UBS? (Score:2)
Did that raccoon report that? :P
Assuming net mercantility vs neutrality? (Score:2)
Does this particular divination state assumptions about cashwidth? (Netola? Information toll highway?)