US Cable TV Industry Faces 'Dramatic Collapse' as Local Operators Shut Down - or Become ISPs (cordcuttersnews.com)
- Reference: 0181073500
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/03/22/0422221/us-cable-tv-industry-faces-dramatic-collapse-as-local-operators-shut-down---or-become-isps
- Source link: https://cordcuttersnews.com/the-end-of-cable-tv-why-cable-tv-companies-are-abandoning-tv-at-a-record-pace/
But "for smaller regional operators, who lack the scale and diversified revenue streams of giants like Comcast, those kinds of losses are simply unsurvivable," they write. And "the companies that once delivered hundreds of channels through coaxial cables are now either shutting down entirely or reinventing themselves as internet providers."
> Pay-TV subscriptions have plummeted from nearly 90% of U.S. households in the mid-2010s to roughly half by the end of 2025, resulting in billions in lost revenue and forcing many smaller operators to conclude that continuing linear TV services is no longer viable... [This year over U.S. 50 cable TV companies — primarily smaller and midsize providers — are "expected to cease operations entirely or shut down their television services," [2] Cord Cutters News reported earlier .] YouTube TV's pricing is so competitive that the platform is projected to have close to 12.6 million subscribers by the end of 2026, positioning it to become the largest paid TV distributor in the United States. Exclusive content deals, such as YouTube TV's acquisition of NFL Sunday Ticket rights, have further eroded the value proposition of traditional cable at every level of the market... As older cable subscribers age out of the market, there is no new generation of customers waiting to replace them...
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> [Cable TV] operators like WOW! are betting that their physical infrastructure — now increasingly upgraded to fiber — is more valuable as an internet delivery system than as a cable TV platform. [WOW! serves customers across Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Alabama — but is "phasing out its proprietary streaming live TV service and directing all customers toward YouTube TV," the article notes.] Industry observers see this as part of a broader trend: operators shedding unprofitable video segments to focus on broadband, where returns and network investments are prioritized.
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> By the end of 2026, non-pay-TV households [3]are expected to surge to 80.7 million , outnumbering traditional pay-TV subscribers at 54.3 million — a milestone that would have seemed unthinkable just a decade ago. For the cable companies still standing, the math is now inescapable: the era of the cable bundle is ending, and the only real question left is how gracefully each operator manages its exit.
[1] https://cordcuttersnews.com/the-end-of-cable-tv-why-cable-tv-companies-are-abandoning-tv-at-a-record-pace/
[2] https://cordcuttersnews.com/over-50-cable-tv-companies-are-expected-to-shut-down-in-2026-signaling-industry-crisis/
[3] https://cordcuttersnews.com/comcast-spectrum-are-in-trouble-as-over-1-million-customers-canceled-their-internet-in-2025-as-2026-becomes-the-year-of-cord-cutting-2-0/
Duh! (Score:2)
Given where "cable" was heading, this was kinda "Duh!". Of course it was going to happen. We went from $240/mo with AT&T's service to $140 with Google Fiber and Youtube TV. And everything got better in the process.
Of course, now that Google Fiber is being bought by private equity, the enshitification will began anew.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
It's indeed a "Duh" moment for sure. We remember this happened to the printed news and the musical industry who refused to embrace the new digital format.
It's always like that with anything old, it will cling onto it's old ways and old times, because it's their business model, when a business model no longer is viable and they failed to find a new way to create a new model, this is inevitable.
The same happens to broadcast media, here in our country they finally moved to "forced pay via taxes" because their
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so emigrate to america or south america from denmark to escape those dastardly taxes and give up on the famous danish quality of life?
no? this is like maga who live in like, massachussets, or socialists who also live in safe, liberal states. you risk nothing so complains are easy.
Re: (Score:2)
Similar is and has happened in many EU countries, the cost of checking who does have a TV (or radio) was not worth it.
But contrary to the USA we still have pretty good public and commercial stations and the majority of the population still pays for the network instead of going streaming only.
Btw, the detector vans were a scam and with a modern TV there is no oscillator anyway.
Hate (Score:2)
These small providers probably aren't terrible.
But Comcast and Charter are evil and shit companies that deserve to die. The fully deserve the hate they create.
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I had a pretty good experience w/ Charter/Spectrum. Comcast - I completely agree w/ you
Dear cable operators: Please stay on the line... (Score:2)
until you drop dead. Your call is "Important" to us!
Re: (Score:2)
They dare not let you speak the truth, Rotsa Ruck telling the captives they are imprisoned. They were born there.
Oh no, it's the world's smallest open-source violi (Score:2)
Had Comcast as an ISP for five years. The only ISP in town, $85/mo for shit service. Moved ten minutes down the street, Comcast is suddenly $55/mo for the same plan, and gasp! there's a competitor in the area. Tried to offer me to relocate my service..... I politely told them to go fuck themselves and they knew there was no point in trying to save the contract.
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Yeah, at my previous residence, I was stuck w/ them. And they'd keep trying to get me to sign on to one of their TV packages, even though I didn't have a TV
There were a couple of places I lived where Charter/Spectrum was the only option, but there, I used to get a great package of $55/month for something like 60Mbps, iirc
Old enough to remember (Score:2)
I'm old enough to remember when the selling point of cable TV was that you could pay for the content on the front end, and then not have ads constantly interrupting your viewing. It seems hilariously quaint now: no ads shoved down your throat at window-vibrating volumes 10-15 times/hour? These companies piloted and doubled down on systemic enshittification before Cory Doctorow gave it a name. They richly deserve to disappear forever, unmourned and unmissed.
If you have to say "dramatic" (Score:2)
The story probably isn't as dramatic as the headline.
It's probably more like the "dramatic" decline of the pay phone industry. It's so dramatic, nobody cares. And, it more like a long-slow whimper than a big bang.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have a TV at all, but I have Cable and use it for Internet access at around 350 Mbps. It is far cheaper than any of the prices I've seen mentioned here (as in around $60 a month), no reason to change.
I Enjoyed My Cable (Score:4, Informative)
Cable is easier than streaming. I could find programming 2 weeks in advance thru their catalog of programming, I had their DVR's in 3 rooms and almost all the premium channels that they offered. I miss the convenience. I hate turning on the TV and having to make the Roku navigate to Sling, then my favorite channel. Turn off the TV while watching my favorite channel on cable, and when turning it on again, my favorite channel is right there on the screen.
With me, it's just a money thing. Cable was freakin' expensive. $310 a month. As stated, 3 DVR's in 3 different rooms, nearly all the premiums. Plus high speed internet service which was actually pretty good, except they were particularly inept at keeping it working. Between having it go down... and up... and down... and up to the point I had to have my Verizon "MiFI" hotspot ready while playing online poker because the cable's internet dropped out so often, and then an outrageous 10 hour interruption for scheduled maintenance on a Sunday morning - yes, I was using the cable that Sunday morning - I did what I really didn't want to do, and went streaming.
Again, I miss cable. I just don't miss $300+ per month, I think I have most of the streaming services I want and fiber internet provided by the power company and all comes in the low $200's. They haven't yet had a 10 hour scheduled maintenance interruption. But its harder to use, and I actually tried and failed to find the Coca Cola 600 the evening of the Indy 500 that I did find and watch. I think it was on Paramount+ which I had, and just didn't know to look there. Or it may have been on Peacock, I get those two mixed up sometimes. But what I didn't get was the Coca Cola 600. I wouldn't have missed the Coca Cola 600 on cable.
And cable's technical changes that nuked Tivo also was a downer. The cable company I had before moving to Texas, in King George County, Virginia was implemented with Tivo provided by the cable company itself. It was a dream of a system with a main receiver and 2 satellites for the 3 rooms I wanted TV's in. You could be watching a movie, switch rooms, turn on the TV, and continue watching the same movie from the same position in it that you left it where you 1st turned it on. Fabulous system.
Not sure cable can ever come back, it's just frightfully expensive. Stringing expensive wire on poles you have to pay rent on and with greedy local TV channels charging the cable company for their signal I think just doesn't work for the average person's wallet. I _could_ afford it, I just don't want to while there's the alternative of streaming. I just wish streaming was as convenient as cable.
Re: (Score:2)
If cable had something where I could pick only and exactly the channels I wanted, and pay only a certain rate per channel, I'd happily take it. Say, just as an example, Disney, HGTV and TBN, and pay for just those 3. And not have to channel surf through 375 channels
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Yes, someone should work on making that possible. They do it with the premium channels, but not the standard ones or the local broadcast stations. They're going to continue to oblivion unless they think of something like that, but the hardware to get it done might also be too expensive.
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Why would special hardware be needed to get it done? Just have a filter maybe at the customer end that automatically drops all channels except for the subscribed ones
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> If cable had something where I could pick only and exactly the channels I wanted, and pay only a certain rate per channel, I'd happily take it. Say, just as an example, Disney, HGTV and TBN, and pay for just those 3. And not have to channel surf through 375 channels
Problem is many of the smaller channels would not survive unless they charge a high rate, and people wouldn't subscribe. They only make financial sense as part of a bundle where they get a few pennies per subscriber but it is enough to make them viable.
In your example, that bundle would be anywhere from ~23-28$/month, depending on your tolerance for ads, plus ISP fees.
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> Not sure cable can ever come back, it's just frightfully expensive. Stringing expensive wire on poles you have to pay rent on and with greedy local TV channels charging the cable company for their signal I think just doesn't work for the average person's wallet. I _could_ afford it, I just don't want to while there's the alternative of streaming. I just wish streaming was as convenient as cable.
I doubt cable will come back, not because of cable companies but content owners. The model now seems to be for content owners to stream their content rather rthan bundle it with other services, and more and more keeping their content exclusive to their streaming service. They'd rather be a separate subscription than on multiple streaming/cable services. As a result, all cord cutting may accomplish is instead of having one expensive cable service you have multiple expensive streams; with one advantage is
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It's an issue of finances. Which comes down to advertising. Big national brands can hang their ad spots anywhere. But local content providers have the advantage of reaching a known geographic area that neigborhood businesses want to reach. Bob's plumbing doesn't need to reach viewers in NYC. Or have to pay for ads shown there. And ISP location services are crap. But advertising on the local news generally gets businesses customers in the correct geogrphic area. Even if that local news is streamed.
Local retransmission fees and forced ESPN need to (Score:2)
Local retransmission fees and forced ESPN need to go or be made opt in.
People with there own OTA hook ups don't need to pay $30/mo for local tv.
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Many local programming OTA stations stream their stuff as well. Since it's their own content, no fees are required.
This is a pretty good solution for local news, which is the primary value of OTA.
Once the cable operators become ISPs*, everyone who wants to capture the eyeballs of the viewers is on their own. Since the whole concept of "broadcast" goes away.
> "You want to watch your local football team? Just go to their streaming site and don't bother us."
All the issues of retransmission fees and bundles of "crap" channels go away.
*At this point, these outfits become common carriers for all intents and
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> Local retransmission fees and forced ESPN need to go or be made opt in. People with there own OTA hook ups don't need to pay $30/mo for local tv.
The local broadcasters claim (and they are probably not wrong), that they could not survive without the re-transmission fees they receive from the TV companies, because they built their business finances around those fees (and those fees are only going to continue to go up).
However, one should ask if the local broadcasters need to survive in their current form. And their continued fee increases may eventually price themselves out of a business.
Refresh my memory: (Score:2)
what's 'cable'?
Re: (Score:2)
The internet service one gets under DOCSYS
Simply Put: Times Change (Score:2)
The generation that was enslaved to a Broadcast over-the-air TV turned to Cable for "edgier", less FCC-moderated content and hundreds more channels.
Then that generation got enslaved by greedy cable prices, especially as things went exclusive like NFL Football on select days and adding 1 channel to watch a hit series was about a quarter of the cost of cable.
People turned to streaming because it was cheaper and in many cases, free. People also rediscovered broadcast over-the-air TV. The pandemic helped
Comcast is becoming an ISP anyway (Score:2)
Especially once they started to use DOCSIS technology to push faster Internet services. And they were able to keep up (mostly) with fiber Internet, They now offer symmetric 1.2 gigabit speed Internet with DOCSIS 4.0, which has started its national rollout. I expect Comcast once it achieves near-natonal coverage of DOCSIS 4.0 to push it to 4 gigabit symmetric access.
In short, I expect Comcast to be less in the cable TV business and more in the cable modem Internet business. And very likely they may widely of
Maybe, just maybe (Score:3)
If they didn’t enshittify and overcharge to the moon people would have been satisfied with the service. The duopoly approach where you have zero choice and what are you going to do cut ties completely went to its logical conclusion. Right now for cable I have the choice of Comcast or Xfinity and I’ve had to live with this for two decades but thank god they are finally laying fiber in my neighborhood and I’m counting the minutes until I can rid myself of that filth forever.
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^high speed internet supplied by cable
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not only overcharge us but monopolize markets, spam us with unethical ads, force us to buy bundles of crap, no quality content, no customer service
good riddence, indeed, i can't wait for corporate hollywood to sink under the weight of its own greed and incomptence too
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It all comes down to wallstreet wrecking everything it takes over. They are a big factor in housing prices too. Hollywood is no different. You can be an upstart that maybe somehow makes it by miracle but you'll be assimilated into the system eventually.
Re: Maybe, just maybe (Score:3)
You pay just to get served ads.
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> If they didnâ(TM)t enshittify and overcharge to the moon people would have been satisfied with the service.
Everyone involved choked that goose to death. The cable companies did overcharge and underdeliver, but the corporations providing them with the content were choking them in turn.
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Choice of Comcast or Xfinity? I thought they were both from the same company
At the place I last lived, I had only one broadband option - Comcast. Nothing else was available - not Spectrum (which was far superior, in my experience), not FIOS, not Cox. So I signed up for their broadband, which was pretty expensive (definitely compared to Spectrum) and was okay w/ it. Except that I'd get periodic calls and flyers in the mail inviting me to sign up for one of their cable TV services. This despite my tell
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'en$(#@tify'
'overcharge'
'zero choice'
'rid myself of that filth'
Keywords that others use to excoriate the streaming services. Good luck with your fiber Internet service.
So there's a huge shift in the economy (Score:3)
That not a lot of people are talking about. I did see some people out of Las Vegas talking about it though and of all things Chipotle.
Basically businesses have run the numbers and figured out that they can make a lot more money over charging the handful of customers who can still pay then they can servicing a lot of customers. Big Data made it possible to actually confirm that. There's an interview with somebody out of Las Vegas talking about how empty the strip is and how despite that they were making
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And you're willing to leave money on the table to get that kind of customer, right? That's well and good. But the point you're willing to assist regulatory capture and the weakening of the FTC is the point you put the rope around your neck.
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There is no world where linear programmed Cable TV can compete with a la carte.
Streaming is just better.
Re: Maybe, just maybe (Score:2)
Xfinity is Comcastâ(TM)s ISP so you have one choice