Wall Street Is Starting To Get Very Nervous About Cable TV Cord Cutting
from the from-denial-to-hyperventilation dept
Wall Street is finally starting to realize there's a storm brewing on the horizon for the nation's biggest cable companies. Cable stocks took a notable dip this week after MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett downgraded the entire cable sector because of worries surrounding cord cutting and streaming video competition. Moffett, who not that long ago used to mock cord cutters for being irrelevant basement dwellers, has seen the light -- more recently noting that 2016's 1.7% decline in traditional cable TV viewers was the biggest cord cutting acceleration on record.
And in a lengthy research note to investors this week, the analyst warned that the cable industry's approach to cord cutting (raising rates and offering horrible customer service while hoping it all works out) simply isn't going to cut it given the competitive threats to come:
"Broadband growth will inevitably slow, and it will likely do so at precisely the same time that video growth rates also come under pressure from OTT substitution," Moffett said in his Tuesday-morning note. "And while cable operators have the pricing power to offset these headwinds via their broadband business, we believe it is likely that investors will (appropriately) apply a somewhat lower terminal growth rate assumption to a business that is achieving its growth through pricing rather than unit growth."
Wall Street and the cable sector's optimism in the face of a massive sector (r)evolution is running out of oxygen, Moffett insists:
"The cable stocks have climbed a wall of worry to get here," Moffett wrote to clients. “But as any mountain climber knows, the higher you go, the thinner the air."
It's an interesting position for Moffett to take, given the fact that for years the analyst breathlessly supported broadband usage caps and overage fees as a fail-safe solution to this problem, once going so far as to declare usage caps "the next generation of communications." Arbitrary and utterly unnecessary usage caps are one trick Comcast has been using to hamstring streaming competitors, while raising prices on broadband to counter any potential TV revenue loss.
For the moment, Comcast has been cushioned from the cord cutting threat by its growing monopoly over fixed-line broadband service. Companies like AT&T and Verizon have shifted their attentions to media and advertising, and other major telcos like Windstream, Frontier, and CenturyLink lack the courage, money or incentive to upgrade their aging DSL lines at any real scale. So in many markets, customers looking for next-gen broadband speeds only have one option: cable. And when they show up, they're forced to sign up for TV services they may not want.
You'd think that a growing broadband monopoly, usage caps, and the government's decision to gut most meaningful oversight of one of the least-competitive sectors in America would have Wall Street stock jocks pretty damn excited. The fact that many of them are still very worried about the cord cutting threat to come -- despite Comcast's immense position of power -- tells you precisely what kind of threat we're looking at.
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Filed Under: cable tv, cord cutting, craig moffett, tv
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Ask your financial advisor if the market is right for you.
Seriously, as one ages retirement savings should be gradually moved into less volatile instruments. Most sane people realize this.
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PSA - US Internet Poised for Rate Increases
Have the pricing power = have a Monopoly so they can raise prices and people can't go elsewhere
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Ignoring Facts to make it worse
And that makes more people join the cutters who can't afford it...
And the rates are raised again to cover those losses...
This business plan won't work for long - but the charts will certainly have a pretty curve on them...Hyperbolic maybe?
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The legacy-industry play book for dealing with innovation:
1) Ignore disruptive start-ups; "they're too small to matter."
2) Mock early adopters; "they're not even really our core customer anyway."
3) Mock early majority; "you'll miss us once you're gone."
4) Offer watered-down version of what made the disruptor successful in the first place; "see, you can stream shows from us too! (*streaming limited to 1 show you've never heard of limited to 1 device requiring 23 user name/logon combinations to access and DRM on top of DRM, available with super-premium tier package only).
5) Panic; "Well, we can always just raise the prices to our remaining customers to make up the difference!"
6) Die
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Since when, on any part of that?
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"before being moved into less volatile instruments"
Volatile? Typo -- you misspelled Vegas!
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Re: Ignoring Facts to make it worse
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Actually, you should take a look at the wireless spectrum allocations; there're mostly *empty*, because allowing more spectrum to be used would reduce the monopoly power of the spectrum *owners*, and thus reduce the value of any spectrum auctions.
The entire telecom business is based upon *manufacturing scarcity* to drive up prices so as to extract monopoly rents; a small fraction of these rents are kicked back through lobbyists to legislators in the form of campaign contributions.
Don't expect Google/Facebook/etc. to act any different; they use the same lawyers and lobbyists that the telecom companies do.
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