Only Half the Homes in America Have Cable TV Anymore (businessinsider.com)
- Reference: 0180074838
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/11/14/1715240/only-half-the-homes-in-america-have-cable-tv-anymore
- Source link: https://www.businessinsider.com/cable-tv-household-50-percent-decline-brian-wieser-2025-11
The decline has prompted major media companies to shed cable assets. Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery, and A&E are seeking to sell or spin off their cable television operations. Paramount stated it would not divest its cable channels but acknowledged that "each quarter is accelerating decline."
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/cable-tv-household-50-percent-decline-brian-wieser-2025-11
hard to believe (Score:3)
that even half have cable - let them eat cake!
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My parents still do though my dad keeps questioning if he wants it any longer. They don't watch much any more and the cost is out of hand.
What they do is spend two hours or so every night watching YT videos of places around the world or watching shows about this or that subject.
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My mother pays over $100/month for cable tv. She is insane.
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They have an all-in-one package from Verizon. Phone, internet, and tv. It is well over $100/month. Cutting out tv would get them just below that amount.
When I gave up cable well over a decade ago price was the reason. I couldn't justify the yearly cost increases when I was only watching ten or so channels on a regular basis.
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> My parents still do though my dad keeps questioning if he wants it any longer. They don't watch much any more and the cost is out of hand.
> What they do is spend two hours or so every night watching YT videos of places around the world or watching shows about this or that subject.
And that is the key demographic that would likely have cable. So when they stop, and enough others stop, Cable is in even more trouble than their almost 50 percent drop.
SO and I still have cable, but it's the same thing. She watched Youtube videos, I watch Youtube videos. She keeps things like court shows on for background sound in the house. I watch science channel late at night. But really, the offerings on cable and network TV kind of stink. How many shows can we have of some hot babe banging 10 diffe
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these are probably the 50+ year olds who are too used to it. as that generation is naturally replaced, the sales aren't.
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Probably more than half of the 50% of households with a cable plan are in some discounted bundle with their cable internet. That's my case with spectrum. They offered like $10 off the same internet plan by bundling it with their streaming linear cable TV option for free. Where you use their app to watch instead of a cable box. I'm sure even those streaming plans get counted as a linear cable tv subscriber on the bottom line. Im almost certain they do this to bloat their subscriber numbers to increase their
Why pay for cable? (Score:2)
When I can get 350 plus channels for free from TCL+ ?
I've been watching for today and have not even seen a commercial, just no content 2 minute "breaks" between content.
Plus streaming services.
Then there is the antenna, good for another 50 or so channels.
Why anyone would pay for cable is beyond me.
Re:Why pay for cable? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Why anyone would pay for cable is beyond me.
Cable provides a simple one-stop, one-bill solution for a lot of people's TV and internet needs - they had it growing up, so it's something they understood and saw no reason to change. Now they're aging out, and their kids - and grandkids - are looking elsewhere, which is why cable's numbers are in decline...
FWIW, when I lived in Manhattan, the choice was cable or nothing. No OTA, and broadband was only just becoming a thing - I was the first in my building to get it - so streaming was a long way off and time-shifting broadcasts was still done with magnetic tape. Now, get off my lawn...er...window box.
The "cable" became fiber (Score:2)
Old coaxial cable networks are being replaced by streaming tv over fiber optic networks in many countries, they are even planning to shut down Satellite and Terrestrial networks too.
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Exactly, they probably are because local cable monopolies demand it but how silly if new home constructions are still having coax instead of fiber connected to them.
Re: The "cable" became fiber (Score:2)
Spectrum is just now rolling out, in a brand new subdivision where some relatives live, "fiber powered" internet and TV. It's fiber to a box down the street, and coax to the home.
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On existing homes I get the pitch but coax on new construction is really unbelievable penny pinching in 2025. Shameful really.
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The number includes digital TV services over Internet, just not streaming on-demand services like Netflix. The big costs are not the physical infrastructure, it's the negotiations with the channels themselves that make the price so high.
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The term "cable" is regularly used by every company offering traditional TV packages for both old coaxial connections as well as fiber. This is incredibly common usage, no one says "I have fiber" when telling someone they subscribe to Comcast's TV offerings or any similiar service (they might for their internet service though).
"Cable" a Failure to Innovate (Score:3)
The invisible hand of the market in action. No reason cable companies could not have upgraded to fiber networks and/or had IPTV plus screaming fast internet. If cable has reasonable prices, decent equipment and invented in their future. It might have been a different outcome. Oh well, c'est la vie... ...
should forced ESPN to be an add on package and no (Score:1)
should forced ESPN to be an add on package and not forced into basic.
Re: should forced ESPN to be an add on package and (Score:5, Informative)
Try writing a complete sentence. Then maybe can understand what the fuck you want to say.
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It will never happen. Disney owns ESPN and many other popular cable networks. They wont allow some of their channels to be added as an addon or not carried at all. It's and take it all or leave it option. The networks they own are so popular that if a cable company chooses not to carry the disney owned networks, then subscribers will jump ship to a competitor that has them. Cable networks have no choice but to bend over and take it up the ass by disney. Disney single handedly is the reason linear cable tv c
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> The invisible hand of the market in action. No reason cable companies could not have upgraded to fiber networks and/or had IPTV plus screaming fast internet. If cable has reasonable prices, decent equipment and invented in their future. It might have been a different outcome. Oh well, c'est la vie... ...
For new builds fiber obviously makes sense, but for the many places already serviced by coax DOCSIS 4.0 supports 10Gb/s.
[1]https://www.cablelabs.com/tech... [cablelabs.com]
[1] https://www.cablelabs.com/technologies/docsis-4-0-technology
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> For new builds fiber obviously makes sense, but for the many places already serviced by coax DOCSIS 4.0 supports 10Gb/s.
That's both now (they could have done fiber a long time ago) and also the best case . Remember, "up to 10 Gbps speeds" (from your link) means anything from 0 bps to 10 Gbps.
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> That's both now (they could have done fiber a long time ago) and also the best case. Remember, "up to 10 Gbps speeds" (from your link) means anything from 0 bps to 10 Gbps.
And if you are going to replace an existing coax plant with fiber, it would make sense to replace the least capable parts first. This would be true through all the DOCSIS generations. I doubt it is economically effective today to replace the parts that can actually do multi-gigabit. Anecdotally speaking I think the demand for 10Gbs residential internet is low, and probably will be for some time.
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> I doubt it is economically effective today to replace the parts that can actually do multi-gigabit.
I agree. In fact for most cable companies in particular it probably makes little sense to replace anything that can do even just 1 gigabit, because they almost surely have other regions or at least boroughs which are currently underserved.
> Anecdotally speaking I think the demand for 10Gbs residential internet is low, and probably will be for some time.
I suspect it's mostly limited to sizable households with a lot of users. But we keep finding new ways to use available bandwidth...
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I tested my connection with fast.com earlier today.
It reported at 480 Mbps.
That's some test server in the internet, to my router, wireless to my cell phone as I sit in bed.
I pay $50/month, all in.
For another $5/month, for 10x the speed, I'd take it. Just because.
Re: The invisible hand of the market in action (Score:2)
FTFY: The invisible hand of government regulation in action
Where I live there is ONE cable provider, no fiber.
State and local regulation forces that.
Why would any local provider invest in fiber or stop increasing prices when they have a government guaranteed monopoly?
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I'm pretty sure most have some form of IPTV. Comcast even gave us a free box for their version. And honestly, usable gigabit speeds are available over coax, what's the need for fiber? Fiber is over-rated. If the use case is streaming, gigabit is ridiculously over-spec, you could stream 20 movies simultaneously at Blu-ray quality including all the unnecessary uncompressed audio streams for every language included on that disc all at once and still be able to browse the Internet while watching all 20 of them.
Thanks for the non-clickbait title (Score:3)
Refreshing to see a post title that has the key information needed and isn't asking a question. I wish all submissions were like this.
Ditched cable & TV set in 2009 (Score:2)
i'm not usually on the leading edge of anything but dealing with cable providers was like ***wiping with a bladed belt sander
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I dropped cable TV around 1996. Have not missed it at all. Unfortunately I had to subscribe to the local cable monopoly again around 2008ish when it was the only thing available faster than DSL (just Internet, no TV). Fortunately fiber came to town a few years back and cable will never be in my life again.
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I'm roughly were you were.
No TV, just 350Mb internet via coax-cable. The price is competitive, it includes 3 land lines (I only use 2) and my mobile access.
Fibre would be more expensive, so why should I change?
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Fiber was much cheaper for me. $85 for 100Mb cable vs $45 for 300Mb fiber.
I cut the cord years ago (Score:2)
Too much money for not enough content.
When I had my morning toast and coffee earlier today I chose between three YouTube videos. An analysis of a high-performance motorcycle engine, a review of an off-road vehicle and troubleshooting a hybrid car. All cable ever has these days is reality shows.
...laura
I'm surprised that it's 50% (Score:2)
I expected lower, a lot lower
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That number probably includes Internet only subscribers.
I'm surprised it's still 50%+ (Score:2)
With 1) a majority of Americans doing their best "Batman Forever" addiction imitation with their eyes glued to their phones, 2) sports packages being available now with streaming options, and 3) digital OTA options in most places for network TV and random digital channels with various, old syndicated content (from I Love Lucy and Star Trek to Home Improvement) with the same commercials volume (if not less than) of cable channels carrying the same edited-for-TV slop... That's just 50% of America throwing the
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I'm amazed by what PlutoTV and Tubi offer for free with ads nowadays. It's basically the same stuff as cable TV, minus live sports of course.
If you're a sports fan, they can still royally screw you over by making sure that your favorite team is streamed over 3 or 4 different networks over the season. They seem to do that on purpose to insure maximum pain if you want to switch to using streaming services.
mail order DVD rental did it for me (Score:3)
The whole Netflix DVD mail thing is what had me drop TV service and go Internet only. I can't stand long interruption with ads, I start to lose the plot and don't enjoy watching. And I don't watch a lot of series, especially if they are new. I'd rather let someone else tell me if it is worth starting. Been burned too many times on stuff like Lost.
One thing that could have saved some customers (Score:2)
If they hadn't encrypted everything so you needed a STB on every TV, it would have helped. Pay for cable service, hook up TV, get content. But no, even the local channels ended up be encrypted, so built-in tuners couldn't do shit.
Cable Has Its Points (Score:2)
Dumped cable last year. Sling / Disney+ / Paramount / MAX / Dirtvision / Peacock / Hulu / Starz. With all that, which does add up to some serious $, I don't have the local channels, all of them. I still need an antenna if I want some of the less traveled channels. Plus, last Memorial day, the information was lacking for me to see the Coca Cola 600 after watching the Indy 500. Turns out it was there, on one of the streamers I'm paying for, but searching for it was a bear. Failed, missed seeing the
Reused house coax wiring (Score:2)
Related on reusing coax cables...
The original builders of our house had coax in every room (I guess they wanted to watch TV a lot). No Ethernet. Fiber comes to house technical room, but from that point onwards no network cabling. Would have been a pain to deploy a new set of fiber or CAT6/7 cable everywhere, so mostly surviving with Wifi. However, for "trunk" connectivity I got a couple of these:
[1]https://www.gocoax.com/ma2500d [gocoax.com]
I'm just using them for point-to-multipoint connectivity - had to get a new splitte
[1] https://www.gocoax.com/ma2500d
Wait what? (Score:2)
All this time I thought I was the cool kid on the block with not just cable but HBO. And analog scrambled porn.
And people who have cable (Score:2)
are too lazy to switch or no smart enough.
They destroyed themselves (Score:2)
It was the bundling that did it. They wanted people to pay for services they did not want.
Worst of all, the streaming services are doing the same thing. I don't think it is possible to get the Marvel movies from Disney without paying for all of Hulu AND Disney.
Eventually someone is going to find a way to take down all the streamers. Oh wait, they already have - the sequential plan where you pay for one service, watch what you want, then quit and move to another.
You want me to pay for your service for de
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Not even the "sequential plan" The fragmentation of the streaming market and ever increasing prices has brought piracy back in a big way. For awhile the studios found the sweet spot of letting netflix have everything available for a single price, I wasn't worth it to bother pirating shit anymore, then they decided to get greedy and fragment the market.
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Also Disney fucking sucks, and I try to make sure as little of my money possible goes their way. As someone living in central Florida they make travel between Tampa and Orlando a royal pain in the ass. If you travel Tampa to Orlando at 3am you can do it in less than an hour. Trying to do the same trip during daylight hours is 2 hrs minimum on a good day, probably closer to 3 hours on a normal day all because of the cluster fuck around the Disney area. I really wish FDOT would put in some elevated through la
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Use 429.
LMFAO sheding assets (Score:2)
Shows how fucking retarded and short sighted these companies are by "shedding cable assets" How bout you adapt them to function in a streaming world? Seems History channel has managed to do that, they have a channel on YouTube with current and back catalogs of shows.
For me it's about ads (Score:2)
Cable TV is 45min of ads and 15min of low quality content an hour. Why would I do it to myself?
Still getting most content OTA (Score:2)
[1]http://brander.ca/cordcutcuug [brander.ca]
My presentation to the Calgary Unix Users Group on getting the local TV stations Over-the-Air, onto a shared Unix directory as .MPG files that I can save, edit, compress. Just sayin'. It's not even hard. $35/year for the subscription to the index/schedule/search service that gives me the same schedule grid as cable always did.
OTA...well...and of course, the fact that I hate Amazon, Apple, and Disney as monopolist swine and care little for their "IP rights"...
[1] http://brander.ca/cordcutcuug
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Must be horrible to walk around carrying all that hate.
Boomers and Zoomers (Score:2)
It'll be at least half of that in ten years.
The Zoomers have no interest in cable TV.
Yeah (Score:3)
Now I pay the same outrageous prices for just cable internet alone, and I pay for streaming services!
What moron pays for cable... (Score:3)
...when literally any content provided on them is available for streaming and download for free ?
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> Remember when Cable TV offered an ad-free television viewing experience, for a monthly subscription fee?
No, I don't. Nor do most people reading this.
In fact, I don't know what country you're talking about, but in the US virtually all TV channels - the subscription channels like HBO excepted - in the US provided over cable TV have had ads. That's because cable TV started purely as an alternative to antenna TV to relay the affiliates of the major networks to places that had poor reception. Over time cabl
Re: Remember when... (Score:2)
You obviously spent those days watching Pat Robertson because CBN was literally the only ad free channel on cable that anybody actually watched in the earlier days. And as far as I know, it's still ad free. Pat Robertson was brought to you by viewers like you calling in to give money. Before that, the first channels offered by cable were OTA channels. Which have always had ads.
The very first channels that were only available on cable, like TBS, CNN, and USA network, always had ads from their inception.
The o
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Nickelodeon and Ha! did not have ads in the early 80s.
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Streaming resp. IPTV has this curious side effect to be a few seconds late. In my apartment block, it's funny to listen to the different flats cheering at slightly different times when watching the same game.
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> ...when literally any content provided on them is available for streaming and download for free ?
In a word? Convenience.
Where is your centralized TV Guide that allows you to browse and stream on demand as easily as cable does?
And how much of an actual threat is that to any aspect of your life if you're pirating it, both today and tomorrow?
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> Where is your centralized TV Guide that allows you to browse and stream on demand as easily as cable does?
Really? Really?? STB user interfaces are widely regarded as the worst in the business. They can afford to be, because the STBs are almost always provided by the cableco and are your only option. They are slow and buggy (just like the majority of smart TV platforms). I also challenge the assertion that anyone really needs a universal content search/browse engine, because most people view their own favorite items/channels and don't venture outside much. On the occasion that a visitor comes over and wants to s
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> Where is your centralized TV Guide that allows you to browse and stream on demand as easily as cable does?
On the "Search" menu of the Roku?
I assume the Amazon Stick, Apple TV The Streaming Box, and whatever Google's pushing these days, have the same feature?
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> ...when literally any content provided on them is available for streaming and download for free ?
Legally for free? I still pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime video. AFAIK, most of that content is licensed.
Sports (Score:3)
Sports packages get really expensive really fast and often don't have all the games you want to watch. I'm not a sports fan but for those that are sometimes if you want to watch certain games the aren't in your area especially you're just going to have to pay for a package.
Sports streaming can be a bit of a mess and can often cost as much or more than cable.