Time Warner Cable CEO Remains In Denial About Cord Cutting
from the it's-very,-very-real dept
There's growing evidence that hordes of people are cutting the cord from cable TV, with many realizing that it's just way too expensive for what they get -- and compared to alternative options. But, as they have for years, it appears that the cable execs remain in total denial (at least publicly) about this. Time Warner Cable's CEO, Jeff Bewkes, was quoted recently as saying that cord cutting "hasn't arrived yet," despite massive customer defections. Of course, to explain this, Bewkes falls back on the other claim that we've seen before: people aren't cutting the cord because of alternatives, but because of the bad economy and the fact that they have no job. Sounds good. But it's a myth. You see, just a week or so before he said those words, a research report came out noting that cord cutters tend to be young, well educated and employed. Kinda makes you wonder what sort of strategy the cable guys are preparing to deal with this issue when they refuse to even admit it's an issue. Pretending that the tide isn't coming in may be worse than pretending you can hold back the tide.
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Filed Under: cord cutting, jeff bewkes, tv
Companies: time warner cable
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They are probably working on their too big to fail speech for congress.
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I got to educate another person today, she was actually paying for movie rental, when she mentioned she has a friend that watches new releases, and could not understand how that was possible. Being a novice user, I gave her homework over a 3 day period, and now enjoys any movie she wants, when she wants, where she wants.
kinda like ppv on demand, without the paying part.
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What's that? It wasn't released on DVD? Wow, that's a shame.
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You say that as though it's ridiculous or stupid. Some of us like to support business models that give us what we want and don't play into the MPAA's rhetoric about how piracy is killing them.
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You've obviously had to phone AT&T's "helpline"
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Declining Subs not at issue
Expect TWC to make some moves emphasizing the role as bandwidth provider (which you still need to cut the cord). An even bigger move would be to jump in to an all a la carte streaming model.
http://cordcutterguide.com/
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If it wasn't for my fiance...
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The employed person will be more likely to have the extra money to go out to a restaurant/bar for dinner and drinks with friends or to go out to a movie or many other activities. Time is a finite resource.
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God knows I would have terabytes of data streaming all over my house in the first year.
Voila instant rental service on my own house for decades to come.
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Been there, Done that.
These days, that can fit in any 4 or 5 drive external array that you might find in a store like Frys.
The end result looks a lot like AppleTV or Netflix or Hulu but with better quality and playback features and a much wider selection of titles.
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Re: Been there, Done that.
I don't think that word "wider" means what you think it means. Netflix has well over 10,000 titles on DVD, so if they have even a quarter of that available for streaming, it's quite a bit more than your 1800.
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Re: Re: Been there, Done that.
Netflix streaming just sucks. It sucks so much that quite often a Netflix user will find themselves falling back to the physical media catalog. That was actually a very handy aspect of their old approach.
The streaming service has limited availability of titles, a reduced selection within the titles it does have, and tends to "expire" things so that you can't access them anymore.
The cost of being cheap can actually be quite high.
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Re: Re: Re: Been there, Done that.
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Cort cutting isn't new
FYI, it should be "hordes" of people. :)
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Cable might not be dead yet, but it won't last forever.
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My wife keeps bugging me to transcode some movies so she can trade those at work with her friends there.
I guess people in Canada just do the same, each one download one show and they all trade those at the weekends or at work or whatever place they use it to get together.
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Hello? You have free access to dozens of uncompressed full HD OTA channels in the Toronto area, and you're not tapping that?
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Big content isn't going to make stuff for free. The more people "adapt" (nice term for piracy there), the more they shoot themselves in the foot.
It's just like shrinkage in a store. They can handle a little bit, but when it starts turning out that more people are stealing than paying, the business model is broken and can't be fixed. The problem isn't the store, the problem is the people who think that taking whatever they want whenever they want is acceptable.
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You people are the worst douchebags.
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Not to mention the cost of producing content has dropped dramatically over the last decade - just look at how good some homemade youtube videos are.
This is one case where the competition is crazy, and there are insane numbers of competitors. Based on that alone, The current high price model can't last forever. All they can do is prolong it a few years, but eventually it will come crashing down.
Increased numbers of cord cutters will facilitate this process. As the current young generation becomes adults, they will know instinctively how overpriced some of the content costs them. The current models will not survive that.
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One day very soon there are going to be a lot of network and sports executives that are going to wake up and realize that their main outlet for the last few decades has dried up. They will realize that people have moved to all of those Internet outlets that the networks have neglected for so long. All of that stuff that they had considered "Premium Content" that the networks produce is not going to be in much demand because the alternative channels have already filled with alternative and reasonably priced content.
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What do they care?
friggin' asshats.
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Re: What do they care?
Where I live cable companies can't just force you to do that or they loose customers to the other 3 hundred service providers that don't own content and don't care if you sign up for their services without cable.
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Re: What do they care?
I use a cell phone.
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I also don't have cable and can watch everything I want with just plain old DSL
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What's he waiting for?
So, his plan is to wait until after cord cutting has already "arrived," and then respond to it?
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After all they don't want to be seen in a weak position when time to negotiate contracts arrive.
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Grammar nazi here again
That said, I'm part of the hordes of cable cutters ;) I have an antenna hooked up to my MythTV PC, and I have Netflix on my PS3. No cable.
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Re: Grammar nazi here again
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Cable...
Cut The Cord
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Young?
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Re: Young?
$150 per month = $1800 per year = $18K in 10 years.
If you are 30 years old you got 35 years to save money that would be $63K.
I can only speak to myself but seriously, I would rather spend $150 dollars a month in other things like a savings account for future medical expenses, kids parties, travels and the evil but necessary insurance for the whole family.
TV doesn't do you any good most of the time, it is not education, it is not investment it is a luxury that most can't afford at the moment and it keeps getting more expensive each year.
Instead of cable if my kids were growing up I would save that money to buy them a car or pay for that sweet sisteen party or wedding.
80% of Americans live in the less than 30K bracket so I'm willing to bet that they can think of better ways to use that much money instead of throwing it out.
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Those "other things" are far more expensive than a mere $150 per month. Try ratcheting it up to $150 a week and you will at least be getting into the right ballpark.
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Misread
"Time Warner Cable's CEO, Jeff Bewkes, was quoted recently as saying that cord cutting "hasn't arrived yet," despite massive customer defections."
What I read instead was this:
Time Warner Cable's CEO, Jeff Bewkes, was quoted recently as saying that cord cutting "hasn't arrived yet," despite massive customer defecations."
While the second version is certainly not accurate in a literal sense, I would surmise that most of those, myself included, who have cut the cord do think of cable as little more than excrement.
Such limited and controlled services are no longer necessary or desirable in an age where technology has enabled the end users to determine what, where, when, and how they will interact with content. Those companies that do not recognize this will not live long. Nor will they prosper.
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Re: Misread -- @ "The Logician": schtick failure.
2nd, "... I would surmise that most of those, myself included, who have cut the cord do think of cable as ..." -- logically says that you "surmise" the contents of your own mind. Hmm.
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Re: Misread
Cable is going to receive a very hard hit in the near future with people like Bewkes running the place.
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INTEND is THE key word here.
"For the second consecutive year, our survey research clearly indicates that those who **intend** to cut the cord are high value, high-revenue customers—not the deadbeats they have been made out to be."
AT BEST this survey PREDICTS! Just as every year are pieces on resolutions from people in the 200-250 pound range to get off the couch and exercise. These yuppies know TV is bad so they SAY in this survey they're going to stop.
Since none of you bothered to read the underlying pieces, your concusions are complete hooey. This Bewkes probably has actual numbers that 'cord cutting "hasn't arrived yet,"'.
Another case of wild extrapolation, Mike.
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So where are the cord-cutters getting their Interwebs?
I get the best DSL I can, which is a whopping 3M from a local ISP (via Frontier).
So where are the cord-cutters getting their Interwebs?
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That my sound ranty, but I really don't care. I would never invest in any telecom. Their 'innovation' plans are always just ways to siphon money away from less technologically informed people (which usually is everyone but young, educated, and employed people).
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Time Warner,Comcast,Etc...
It is only a matter of time until all of Time Warner's competitors (Mainly Comcast & AT&T) offer a high speed internet only package instead of a bundling it with cable TV.
We had to take apart a few Google TV's , Roku's and Apple TV's in order to create our software as we wanted to have all the functions of the above listed devices.
Try our Magic TV Software for Windows free for 30 days, no installation required. Our website as always is free.
The era of Free Cable TV has arrived; enjoy the shows.
New Era Distributing Co.
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Maybe 2 or 3 programs a month I would look forward to and the rest was either trash channels or reruns. When I got to realizing the only reason the dang thing was on was to provide background noise the rest of the time, I got rid of cable.
I'll not be back as a customer. It was far to expensive then for what it was worth. It hasn't gotten better over time. The blessing of doing without commercials was worth it for that alone.
I no longer own a tv set and I am not planning on buying one.
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I get DSL without having a phone. They are now selling accounts that do not require you have a landline to get the internet.
So I use VOIP for the internet and it's a heck of a site cheaper than getting a landline phone.
While 6 megs is not the greatest speed it will work for the price.
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A Different Perspective
Perhaps its just me, but what I'm not understanding is why people are complaining about a service - I'll use my area's triple play for example - which is (for the 1st year) about, $3.66 per day, and slightly higher every subsequent year, as prices go back to their normal rate.
Call me crazy, but 3.66 per day (unless you are poor) is a pittance. Considering that infrastructure is always updated, we don't charge for trouble calls (I know from personal experience most of the other ones do), and we continue to add more channels; which if we really wanted to break it down comes to about $1.22 (for cable).
If we further divide this $1.22 (when we offer about 600+ channels) per channel; incidentally, this was me breaking down a friends bill.
Now consider our competitors: charge for trouble calls, have hidden install fees, require contracts, and other shenanigans and I'm not seeing the complaint. I'm really not. Feel free disagree, but the fact remains the service is really not expensive.
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Re: A Different Perspective
If I'm sitting at the pooter playing a game, I'm not watching cable. If I'm getting my news from the interwebs, then I'm not watching cable. If I'm streaming youtube clips, I'm not watching cable. If the broadcast tv is on, I'm not watching cable. If I'm running a film from netflix, I'm not watching cable.
If 3.66 per day is affordable, then there's not many hours in the day to spend it. If using cable represents 15% of my available leisure time, how is it worth as much as my electricity bill?
It isn't.
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You forgot to tell us to mention voucher code 'GullibleIsNotInTheDictionary' when we order...
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For a good answer Jim, read the AC response. There is a new group of consumers who use the internet to access information and entertainment at such a volume that a traditional cable TV package no longer makes sense at any price.
My prediction is that this group will grow in size and in the long run make the current cable TV service, as it is, less and less profitable. Companies that find adaptations now will be able to mitigate the damage, or perhaps even find an offering for the new market.
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Without "(Full disclosure, I'm a TWC employee)" would we really not have guessed?
Either way, if I didn't say it, someone else would have and I'd be forced to laugh at somebody else's wit and humour rather than my own... (sarcasm added)
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I guess my point would be at the moment, cable and / or satellite services still represent the best way to access digital content... for now. In the long term is anyone's guess.
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FTFY.
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Re: A Different Perspective
Even taking the artificially low numbers, though, cable is still not a bargain. Sure, you get hundreds of channels, but (for me) there is almost never anything that I want to watch when I want to watch it. This makes the math simply terrible. The last time I figured it, I was paying something like $3-$5 per show that I actually watched.
So I cut the cable years ago.
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Why, isn't it obvious?
Litigation of course!
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Mike is wrong btw
Technicality for legacy businesses FTW.....
hehehehehehehe
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I'm employed, and I'm a cord-cutter
I've been continuously employed throughout the recession, I have a college degree, and I can afford to pay all of my bills.
I'm not a deadbeat subscriber, I just have better things to do with my time.
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only one
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