Last Quarter, Cable Companies Lost Nearly 300,000 Subscribers

Rob Toledo | October 13, 2016 | Streaming News | No Comments

298,000 to be exact.

A lot has been said about cord cutting in the past few years, that it’s the way of the future, that it’s dying, that it’s only for people who don’t want to stream live sports, the list goes on…

But the truth is in the data, as the NYTimes is reporting that nearly 300,000 people have cut the cord in the last three months.

There are a lot of different reasons people cut the cord, some related to budget, some more focused on simplifying television consumption habits, and some because they’re just fed up with the terrible service they receive from their cable provider.

Cable providers have fought back with slim packages, attempts at improving service, and worst of all, making it harder to rely strictly on streaming by capping data usage.

Consumers have never had more options than they do now, with services like Netflix paving the way, Hulu and Amazon joining, and most recently Sling TV bringing the holy grail of streaming live sports to the streaming marketplace.

For about half the cost of a cable television subscription, it’s possible to get around 80% of the shows you want to watch available either live streaming or on a delayed delivery via Hulu or Netflix.

When we asked why most people still have cable, the response was live sports for a large majority of people, but it has never been easier to stream games online. Here’s a few guides to your favorite sports:

As services like Amazon and Hulu both have recently expressed interest in live streams via their subscription services, it will be interesting to see how major broadcast and cable networks respond. It appears there is plenty of demand for digital streams of sports, and the market is definitely moving that direction.

Evolve or die, we suppose.