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Television cord cutting reaches record levels

24K views 135 replies 29 participants last post by  ExDilbert 
#1 ·
#2 ·
I cut the cord in November - plan on re-attaching it for a few months (CFL/F1 seasons) and then disconnect in November again.

Soon as TSN is available like Sportsnet with a online/OTT package, I'll subscribe to it, or if CFL/F1 launch their own packages, seasonally.

I wonder how many others are like me - just subscribe on a "seasonal" basis?

My snowbird parents also do this annually - and then pick the best deal when they return for the spring/summer/fall, and cancel when they go back south.
 
#19 ·
Not all of those were cord-cutters, since Telus had a net gain of 54,000 TV customers.

To put things into perspective, according to the study, there were 202,000 fewer TV subs than there year before. That works out to 1.8% of 11.2 million (link.)

One minor flaw in the study is that they only count the change in the 7 large BDUs that release their stats to the public. So if a customer switches from Rogers or Bell to VMedia or Zazeen TV, this study doesn't count them as a TV subscriber, even though they still are.
 
#7 ·
You said cord-cutting was a myth, so I assumed you were only considering legitimate Canadian IPTV BDU's which would not be cord cutting but a change of provider. Also, I didn't think you would want to promote piracy by posting links to illegitimate services (I didn't follow the link).
 
#8 ·
I am not sure if those services are illegitimate or not. I have seen few of these stores in my area advertising these type of services with adds in front of a store and live tv inside the store. One is actually in front of a big shopping mall and the city hall.
I think it is piracy but it may or may not be against the law in Canada, I am not a lawyer. That is why Canada is a piracy heaven according to some content producers.
It is just funny that Canadian TV service providers are losing thousands of customers to those type of services and nobody is doing anything about it.
Actually BDU's are not talking about it because they do not want to promote these services but they know it is a huge problem, I just can not find a link to that story.

I talk about it not to promote it but to show that it is a huge problem and the main cause of cord cutting so it should be addressed.
 
#9 ·
Cord cutting is not a myth. Its a result of market changes. Competition is created not only from other cable offerings but from advances to technology.
Jobs and competitiveness in the manufacturing sector is subject to the same forces. It was the ignorance of classic auto makers that cased the near failure due to global competitiveness. Cord cutting is a provider created outcome. If the big guys learned to compete rather than collude.... their retention rate would stabilise.
 
#10 ·
I think a number of our different viewpoints are over semantics more than reality. Some observations:-

1. Cord-cutting is not really cord-cutting when we are still connected to that very same cord. It's plain daft to call it cord-cutting. To that extent it is a myth. We need a new term for BDU cutting.

2. Technological change is a, probably the, key factor.
(a) The internet has become currently all important, and the vast majority of so-called "cord-cutters" are more dependant on that cord than ever. I wont be crying for any of the big telcos, just as well as a lot of our pensions are invested with them. They have rock solid guaranteed future revenue streams from their duopolistic network cords.
(b) traditional myriad BDU TV channels are no longer a value added proposition for most people. The BDU's themselves with their on demand services, Crave TV services, and PVR's demonstrate that the traditional commercial television channel model is obsolete. "Cord-keepers" may now hardly ever see those endless, mindless commercials on their BDU TV. BDU TV is fast obsolescing. Specific content provision is now universally king and the BDU's are fighting hard to reinvent themselves in this brave new world. They know the old world has gone forever. And actually they don't really care as they still have control of the cord.
(c) Piracy is a real but minor sub-issue in the wider context of this massive technological change.

3. Regardless of the legality of any particular stream, the CRTC digital rights exemption means that (in Canada at least) even legal internet based services (be they Netflix or F1 or major league sports packages or even foreign IPTV services) are seen as something legally different to a BDU. It's semantics again and another unsustainable daft CRTC policy distinction. I can watch NHL Hockey on Sportsnet via an IPTV BDU on my wireless roku or on Rogers Gamecentre Live on my very same wireless roku. The former selection makes me a "corder", the latter a "cord-cutter." Either way, I'm still tied to that same cord coming into my house from big cable and my subscription fees ultimately end up in the media company belonging to that same big cable company. "Cord-cutting" is semantic nonsense completely divorced from both the economic and technological reality!

Cord-cutting is not a myth but a dangerous misleading nonsense leading to poor public policy decision-making. BDU cutting is growing. Perhaps abolishing BDU's themselves may be an idea whose day is not too far away?
 
#11 ·
Regardless of what name you give it, anecdotally, pretty much everyone I know who does not subscribe to a BDU subscribes to Netflix and otherwise pirates what they want to watch. They won't even consider other Internet-based options that exist such as CraveTV. $10 - $15 is the most they're willing to spend on TV (which primarily goes to Netflix) and they'll pirate anything that doesn't provide them. Even if all existing content was offered by an Internet-based service tomorrow, it would be an uphill battle to bring those people back from piracy, because the price they're now used to ($0 in many cases) is a hard price to beat.

Look at the music industry -- streaming services are now the norm, because for the price of a single album per month, you can listen to basically whatever you want, regardless of publisher. That's essentially Netflix's model, except you don't get everything there, and TV/movie content is far more expensive to produce, so I don't believe that model would be sustainable there with the current amount of content we have. That's the model people want though, and they don't seem willing to tolerate anything else. Some US content providers have already begun taking small steps in that direction to attempt to stop the bleeding, but as far as I know, the only one that has seen any substantial amount of success with that is HBO, and even then, people tend to only subscribe while the show they want is in season.

The other factor though is that there's so many entertainment options these days, many of which legitimately cost little or nothing, that there may be too much competition and people only watch a handful of shows at best. I see a consolidation of content offerings coming in the future, because the current model will become unsustainable. Netflix can only afford all the shows it does because it has a massive global revenue base. That will likely also be the direction we're going with everything, in that licensing content by territory disappears.

As for the CRTC, they know it would be impossible to attempt to regulate Internet content in a global marketplace, which is why they haven't tried. Even the US hasn't attempted to do that. They also know that traditional BDU days are numbered, and their recent regulations are a lot more hands off, but those BDUs still have a privileged position in the marketplace, and thus still warrant some regulation while they still exist.
 
#12 ·
If I wasn't getting a retention deal that effectively makes TV free, I'd cut the cord. We barely use it aside from a couple of things, and they're not worth the standard price at all. Plus, the endless drudgery of commercials. It's paying far more and getting a vastly inferior version of the product as compared to Netflix/Crave/etc.

And that's not even counting the piracy options... which yes, a $15 "IPTV box" is almost certainly one of, given that it's likely not licensed in any way. That's just a rebrand on the Kodi boxes, since a court order applies to those due to a lawsuit.

The BDUs know all this, which is why they're jacking the price of Internet sky high whenever possible. That's the one thing people actually want. The cable TV business model is a legacy one and will gradually die off as the people who are used to it get older and become a progressively smaller market. Millenials and those who come after them have zero interest in being told to pay $60/month to watch a show when some guy in Toronto dictates it will be in, interrupted by 50 lame commercials. That model is a dinosaur, and the only question is how long it takes for the meteor to hit.
 
#13 ·
While they have number per say on the people who have 'cut the cord'.. dropped cable/sat..

But would be nice to see the numbers of otherwise WHAT they then went to??

How many have NOTHING.

How many are streaming via LEGAL means.

How many are streaming via illegal/grey area means.

(sadly, i believe the larger amount will be the later)
 
#14 ·
I agree. This is why I call cord cutting a myth. Not because it does not exist but because it does not exist in the numbers that the article provides.

Years ago a cord cutter would cancel tv subscription for Netflix, OTA, YouTube and some free streams.

These days if a person cancels Rogers Tv service but gets access to all channsls provided by Rogers, Bell and others, either using Kodi or unauthorized IPTV service, are they real cord cutters.

How can people call themselves cord cutters when they have and are able to watch hundreds of premium live tv channels, way more than what I have with my mere $60 a month tv subscription.
 
#57 ·
How can people call themselves cord cutters when they have and are able to watch hundreds of premium live tv channels, way more than what I have with my mere $60 a month tv subscription.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord-cutting

I don't think people doing it came up with the so called term themselves. I suspect that Marketers came up with that term, as they often do to explain the trends that they see, when mining user data. Call it whatever you want. The effect is the same. One less user on the block, no longer paying that particular bill every month, year in year out. When they would like to have EVERY user on the block continue paying that bill every month, year in year out. Losing any amount of subscribers for any reason is not a good scenario for them.
 
#15 ·
The current "free TV" phenomenon is not much different from pirate satellite boxes about 10 years ago. The technology has changed but it's all about criminals selling hardware to circumvent content licensing agreements and copyright laws. The differences are that the content sources have changed and so has the hardware. Pirate satellite was fairly easy to control due to limited suppliers for the boxes and the software mods that made them work. "Free TV" boxes are more difficult to control because the hardware is legally available from many sources, the content servers are outside Canada or US jurisdiction and the piracy software is more widely available. Making sale of pre-configured Android boxes is not going to do much good since the sellers can go underground at any time. The only way to combat this is by shutting down the content servers.
 
#16 ·
Still sounds like the old argument...what came first the chicken or the egg! It is difficult to really know what subscribers are thinking but a consensus would be the cost and lack of real choice. The big boys have all the cards and no matter what you do you still are on the short end of the stick unless you divorce yourself from all forms of communication. It amazes me that some complain about lack of choice etc but have very expensive cell phone plans. No one will be satisfied and everyone has their own views. In our case we have Netflix and Prime. As we use a lot of on-line shopping the video service is a bonus. Also have unlimited internet and Bell TV. No land phone...use magic jack and have $15 a month cell for emergencies. But still remain dissatisfied as we generally watch only five or six channels on a regular basis.....not interested in hockey but like the odd Blue Jay game....pick and pay and starter packages are a joke. (as is the CRTC) So on and on it goes without a real solution. Enjoy.
 
#17 ·
What bugs me is that communications and media companies want to quadruple dip into consumers' pocketbooks. They seem to feel entitled to household subscriptions for TV at $70+/mo plus internet at $70+/mo plus a landline phone at $50+/mo and then expect everyone to buy individual wireless cell and data plans at $70+/mo. That's a lot of overlap and just way too much money for most households. All these services seem to be increasing in price faster than inflation and way faster than most peoples' incomes. "Cord cutting" really amounts to getting rid of non-essential services and cost cutting on the essentials. For many, that means getting rid of an expensive TV subscription and seldom used POTS landline. Do people really need much more than an internet connection and smartphone these days?
 
#21 ·
We can speculate all we like, but I think it's worth noting that we have no idea how many people actually buy and use pirate TV boxes. Remember that at the height of the satellite piracy hysteria a few years back, estimates were around 2 million pirates in Canada and the US combined. That's a big number, but a relatively tiny percentage of TV subscribers.

Personally, I don't actually know anyone subscribing to these services. I do know some people who pirate TV and movies, but they do it the same way they've been doing it for years, and they wouldn't start paying for a pirate feed. Are lots of people subscribing to these things? Almost certainly. But I don't know if lots is tens of thousands, thousands, or just hundreds.

Ultimately, the way to turn the pirates back into legitimate customers, and the way to keep legitimate customers from becoming pirates, is to put out a good product. The music industry has proven this for us. When the music industry told people that the only way they could get songs was to buy a whole album for $25 which includes a bunch of songs they didn't want in a format they didn't want, they said screw this and downloaded the one song they actually wanted for free. When iTunes came along and offered people the chance to buy a single song for a dollar and have it delivered instantly in a format that worked for them, people started doing that. When music streaming services came along and made it all even easier, even more people went that way.

There have been other successes in this model, TV-wise (MLB.tv, Hulu, etc), but Netflix is the only one to be really ubiquitous. Why is Netflix the only one to really work so far? They get it all right. They have content people want to watch, they let them watch it in they way they want (they have great apps on almost every platform), and they offer it at a fair price. That's why almost nobody pirates Netflix shows.

Cable TV has the content that people want to watch, but that's where it ends. They make you watch it on their platform (TV boxes) with their bad interfaces, with commercials, and at the time that they choose to air it. And they charge you a high price for the privilege. Where they have attempted to release internet based products to meet that customer desire, they have inevitably been some combination of low quality streams, unreliable, crippled by bad interfaces, or extremely limited in platform support. Eventually, cable TV will have to figure it out or be devoured by other companies who do. It sounds like Google and Apple are finally getting in the game now, so they may be running out of time.
 
#22 ·
For that to happen in Canada, protectionism will need to be reduced. That has allowed the Bell conglomerate to obtain a stranglehold on licensed first run content and a lot of premium content. What little the CRTC has done, like forcing Bell to sell CraveTV to non-Bell subscribers, has helped but Bell continues to trample Canadian consumers in a monopoly-like manner. At the very least, we need services similar to HBO GO for premium services like TMN and HBO Canada plus a Hulu-like service for Canadian network TV. I'd like to see channels like TCM, SuperChannel and Hollywood Suite start streaming services to put pressure on Bell but I don't see it happening soon. The demise of Shomi only increases their reluctance to compete. While Canada's major corporations consist of companies that control vertically integrated BDUs, ISPs and wireless companies, it won't happen. These entities need to be broken up into arms length services.
 
#23 ·
Cord cutting is not a myth. We're seeing the beginnings of a sea change. Anecdotally, in the past most people I knew had a broadcast TV subscription. Now, most people I know seem to just stream their video, and they're happier with the streaming services than they were with "cable TV".

My sense is that the rate of attrition from "cable TV" services will ramp up significantly, and to keep customers the BDUs will have to offer better services for less money.
 
#26 ·
It is a myth in my opinion because I do not consider the person who cancels tv subscription to get unauthorized IPTV for $15 a month or Kodi to stream hundreds or thousands of live TV channels or pirate streaming sites, to be a cord cutter but rather a pirate.

I am sure that there are many true cord cutters using only legal means but not in the numbers that some are trying to make us believe.

It is like smokers who stopped buying cigarettes in regular stores but buy their cigarettes illegally for half the cost.

They have not quit smoking the same like some cord cutters never stopped having access to live premium channels or latest movies or shows, and actually have more access than people who pay for TV subscription.
 
#24 ·
Protectionism will slow the process here, but it won't stop it. Let's assume for a moment that the BDUs continue to offer basically the same product as is, and no other legitimate options arise (I don't think this will happen, but this is a hypothetical):

  1. Seeing the options available in the rest of the world, and frustrated with the local options, more Canadian consumers will switch to piracy for their content
  2. That switch to piracy will begin to strain the resources of the BDUs, leaving them with less financial flexibility to buy up streaming rights for content and then sit on them.
  3. Content owners who currently sell those rights, like HBO, will eventually reach a tipping point where it makes more sense to open their existing platform and sell directly to consumers in Canada

This is not how I'd like to see things unfold because I think it would unfortunately lead to a lot of casualties among Canadian channels and content, especially local affiliates. But right now, I think it's the path we're on.
 
#25 ·
Canadian channels and local affiliates became casualties years ago, largely due to satellite services and massive media concentration approved by the CRTC. They were gobbled up by the likes of Bell, Shaw and Rogers and reduced to a pile of crap. What is left is a tightly controlled media and communications industry that is designed to extort money from Canadians. I do see the reform of Canadian broadcasting you envision but it is taking too long compared to other developed countries. The main culprits are protectionism and resistance from vested interests. Another factor are some counterproductive CRTC regulations. The US and Great Britain are about 5 years ahead of Canada.
 
#27 ·
Then are you a cord-cutter if you cancel cable but subscribe to Sportsnet Now? What about MLB.tv or any of the other direct sports packages?

Cord cutting refers to canceling traditional subscription broadcast television services. It is no an inherent assumption that you will lose access to live premium channels or latest movies or shows. That is often the case in Canada, but it's not inherent to the definition. Cord cutting is not quitting TV.

And even if we assume that lots of people are using pirate services (which I've seen no evidence is the case), the important question is not whether these people are using pirate services or legitimate services. The important question is, if they lost those pirate services, would they go back to their BDU? If the answer is no, then stopping piracy is not the solution for the BDUs.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Well let me put it this way. Is a person cord cutter when he cancels Bell satellite but then goes to IPTV store and purchases illegal box and subscription for $15 a month to receive the same channels and more when the person had legally.
I do not understand how that person can call himself a cord cutter having the same or greater number of channels.
 
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