Smaller Cable Companies Are Giving Up On Cable TV Altogether
from the unsustainable dept
As giants like Amazon, Apple, AT&T, and Comcast rush to dominate the TV market, smaller cable providers are suddenly finding themselves unable to compete. Pay TV margins have been tightening for years, and without the kind of scale enjoyed by companies like AT&T/DirecTV/Time Warner or Comcast/NBC Universal, smaller cable companies have warned for years how they would probably have to ditch the TV business and focus exclusively on broadband.
Some companies, like Kansas cable TV provider Rainbow Communications, are finally following through on those promises. The company sent a letter to its customers this week (hat tip, Cord Cutters News) informing them they'd be shuttering their cable TV operations, and suggesting impacted customers should probably go check out this whole streaming video thing:
"You’ve probably heard about streaming TV. Streaming is watching TV over your internet connection, and now with new applications, you can stream shows on television sets. While Rainbow will not be your TV provider moving forward, your new digital picture and sound can be delivered over our Rainbow internet service. When you combine our high-speed internet with HD-picture, the clarity will surprise you.”
It's the beginning of what's expected to be a fairly ugly shake up as the long-unsustainable pay TV sector transitions from "wink wink" competition to a new streaming video fist fight. Gone are the days where cable TV providers could neglect customer service and charge $130 a month for a bundle of 500 channels nobody actually watched. Under the new reality, margins are tight as hell, and unless you're doing double duty as a cable provider and broadcaster, you're not going to have the scale to be able to compete with massive giants with the leverage of scale.
But good news (for them)! Because U.S. broadband is so painfully uncompetitive, most of these smaller cable companies can shift entirely to broadband, where they can raise rates largely with impunity. They can also impose arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps and overage fees, letting them both jack up the cost of broadband service, and cash in on the streaming video services they're now pushing captive broadband customers to. That same lack of competition will also let them ignore the abysmal customer service the cable sector is historically known for.
In other words, most of these companies can simply pivot from overcharging you for cable TV to overcharging you for cable broadband, while saving costs on program carriage fees and traditional cable infrastructure.
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Filed Under: cable tv, competition, cord cutting, over the top, streaming, tv
Companies: rainbow communications
Reader Comments
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I'm hoping Starlink will be the disruptive technology that jerks the rug out from under the traditional cable providers. If what I've read about them is true, the cable companies have to be shitting themselves right now.
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Cable companies should adapt to the times
The smaller cable companies should have seen this coming a long time ago. Just like Blockbuster, they will go out of business if they don't adapt to the times.
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It's a Doggie Dog World
There seem to be many more ads here these days.
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lets see.
Small cable company..
Gets charged no matter what for all the channels they Subscribe, but also have to take, this and that, and NOT just those they Want and the customers Would watch in the area..
Pay a fortune also because you a a small company Not a national corp.
Then have to Pass those charges to the customers...Including channels they Dont want and dont want to pay for.
Those that like sports number about 40%.. Why do the other 60% want it?
Also they really dont get money from adverts from the National services, only local adverts.. So, How do you Cut those adverts and insert your local ones? Cant.
Fun aint it?
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Re: lets see.
Plus cable is watch on their schedule, while streaming is watch on your schedule.
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Sports Channels
I would love to be able to drop the channels I will never watch, like all those freaking sports channels, as I have never watched them, and delete them when I can from normal view, however I still pay for them due to bundling, even if it only saves like five bucks, I dont watch it, why should I pay for it?
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God Karl Bode is sooooo insufferable. Why does anyone hire him to spout his garbage? He talks out both side of his rear end. ADMITS cable TV margins are nearly non existent yet says cable TV companies are evil for charging such high prices. Ok Karl they should operate at a loss because they are charities not businesses. Maybe this website should no longer have ads too.
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Re:
"ADMITS cable TV margins are nearly non existent yet says cable TV companies are evil for charging such high prices"
... and this alone makes Karl insufferable?
Where does Karl claim the cable tv folk are responsible for the entirety of the ridiculously high prices being charged for content?
Wait - now it is about ads? Make up your mind.
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same song
So instead of paying the local cable monopoly
-1 fee for internet access
-1 fee for cable tv
and then paying the streaming service for shows
We now get to pay the local cable monopoly
-1 fee for internet access (increased fee to make up for the loss of cable tv revenue)
and then pay the streaming service(s) for shows (increased fee to make up for the money that content creators WERE getting from cable tv channels)
I can't wait for Netflix et.al to start showing commercials. Eventually we'll realize that it's just entertainment.
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Re: Starlink
Supposedly Starlink is initially focusing on rural service, which makes sense: they are underserved and won't consume as much bandwidth.
I haven't seen stats to confirm the overall bandwidth supported by a Starlink mesh vs. an undersea or overland cable on the backbone, so it's not clear if they could "take over the world" and be competitive in urban areas, or if they'd get too congested.
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When analog TV died several years back, all cable TV became a version of encrypted digital data streaming with no data caps. By killing what is called cable TV, the providers can now impose data caps and overage fees for basically the same service while simplifying their billing and maintenance procedures.
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Re: Re: Starlink
I work for an ISP serving rural communities. This last line is patently not true. We have a lot of customers that can crush the internet, this is in spite of usage caps.
We don't like having usage caps, but the fact is most of the communities we serve, transport out of these communities varies between expensive and ungodly expensive.
For the few communities we serve where transport out is lower, prices and usage limits reflects that.
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Re: Re: Re: Starlink
What a bunch of nonsense.
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Re: Re:
He doesn't, but the cable companies have, by bullshit fees, bad customer service, etc., forfeited the ability to be treated as mere middlemen. If they contacted people to say "Disney raised our fees by 30%, do you want to pay 30% extra for that one channel or cancel it?", the customers might be more understanding. And in fact that's what dropping all TV will provide: neither the ISP nor the TV company will be able to blame increases or weird bundling requriements on the other.
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living deep in the country now
Last month my very small rural town just got fiber. Local ISP did not charge for installation and tripled my download speeds for $20/mo less than I'd been paying. My upload speeds increased 10x.
No one at the local office is pushing cable, and they tipped me off to YouTube TV having local sports after SlingTV got shafted by Fox on prices.
No controversy over any of this, mostly tax dollar subsidized. I can't see a downside for this community.
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Re: Re: Re:
Ok, let's blame Karl!
WoooHoooo!
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Re: living deep in the country now
Mark Giselson, you are blessed.
This is what local ISP competition should look like in every big city and small town USA.
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Re: Re: lets see.
yep, they got rid of the VHS recorders..
And reasonable price on DVD recorder isnt happening..and the current ones ARENT simple to use..
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Starlink
No, it really is not nonsense. Where I am at Centurylink is the only real backbone connection. They do not want competition in the small cities that they serve up in the mountains.
I have spoken with the owner of a local long range Wi-Fi provider, the costs for just two redundant 10Gbs is astronomical. These lines have been in place for the better part of a decade for cellular back haul lease yet were never utilized, and reception is still crap in many areas.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Starlink
Horse poop. My company has not 1 but 2 10g links, They are pricy, but the cost could easily be recouped with few hundreds of subs.
As for download caps - even worse horse manure - throttle your worse offenders and run some very basic QoS. It's not that hard to do very basic traffic management without caps
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Now Google
One day later: Google Fiber kills TV service, focuses on broadband and YouTube TV
(Was anyone else surprised that Google started a new cable-TV service in 2012?)
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Re: Sports Channels
Call the State AG..
See if the idea that only 40% of people WANT ESPN at over $8 per person, for Everyone...including those 60% dont want it.
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Re: Re: Re:
Drop a channel?
HOW?
Only if its a choice..ask ESPN How they got onto the Standard channel setup and charge $8 per Customer..when only 40% WANT ESPN.
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