Cost is the number one reason why people cut the cord

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,289   +192
Staff member

There are plenty of valid reasons to consider severing ties with your cable or satellite TV provider. Unsurprisingly, cost is one of the biggest concerns.

In its Q1 2017 Video Trends Report, DVR maker TiVo found that 79.7 percent of survey-takers that cancelled their pay-TV service did so because of price (it was too expensive). 37.1 percent of respondents said they spend $101 or more per month on cable or satellite TV service with more than 10 percent of those spending north of $150.

Of those polled, 22 percent said they were “unsatisfied” with the level of value they receive from their provider. Surprisingly enough, 23.7 percent responded as being “very satisfied” while the remaining 54.3 percent were “satisfied.” I personally would have suspected the level of dissatisfaction to be higher.

Those who said they were unsatisfied cited cost as the main reason for their displeasure. Poor customer service, poor TV service and a bad selection of channels were also common complaints.

When asked if they planned on leaving their pay-TV provider in the next six months, 7.2 percent said they were going to do so while 6.6 percent said they were planning to simply switch to a different paid provider. Nearly a third responded with “maybe” while 51.1 percent said they intend to stick with their current provider over the next six months.

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As some others posting to this site might say, surveys have to be taken with a grain of salt. Given that TiVo is ultimately the source, I am not so sure that I would consider this a great source of information. Personally, I did cut the cord because I no longer wanted to pay $87/mo for the five channels that I watched plus locals which I can get OTA. That, they got right.

It remains to be seen where cord-cutting will go in the future, however, there is nothing right now that will draw me back to paying six times what I am paying for essentially the same thing especially since I have a much better selection of movies through Netflix.

One thing I think Ajit Pai has right is encouraging a switch to ATSC 3.0 for OTA TV. Once that is available more widely, gone will be the OTA reception problems that people have with ATSC 1.0. Cable should be worried about ATSC 3.0.
 
Cost is the number one reason people choose not to have service. This is the exact reason why telecom needs to be regulated. These types of ridiculous costs are now spilling over into the mobile market as more providers offer multiple services such as phone, internet, and cable.

Their content sucks, and they up the price of their surrounding services to basically force you into opting into cable in order to get cheaper discounts in the mobile side. This is a huge problem. There is no competition for pricing any more.

AT&T for example now wants $110 per month for 1 phone with unlimited data and that's without the $20 device cost. To lower your bill they try to strong arm you into their shitty direct TV service which reduces your bill by $25. It's all total bullshit. Might I add the service albeit unlimited is horrible and you can't even get 30Mbps down on your phone because every AT&T tower only offers 2 bars of service.

/end rant
 
Not only the price...but what's "on" tv....garbage.
Use to love the history channel, but, it's 100% made up "reality" shows.

Nice to see at least one that agrees. Even netflix and other online streaming options suck as they have no education programs or non biased documentaries. There really is no option for someone who want's to develop them selves.
 
Charter Communications (Spectrum) started eliminating the good channels about a year ago. Now with the merger with Time/Warner I expect it to get worse and more expensive. I already have a digital antenna and pull in 25 decent stations from Nashville so I'll cut off the service this year. I was thinking about one of the other providers, but with all their clauses in their mandatory contracts it really isn't worth it so I'm taking another look at live streaming and waiting for the Google product to arrive here.

Around here we refer to cable service as "Trump TV" because they are full of lies and never perform up to their claims and, not to be missed, if you threaten legal action they immediately lawyer up. At least my TV never has a bad hair day!
 
Even netflix and other online streaming options suck as they have no education programs or non biased documentaries. There really is no option for someone who want's to develop them selves.

Check out Vice on HBO, I know its premium but it's really good stuff.
 
Not only the price...but what's "on" tv....garbage.
Use to love the history channel, but, it's 100% made up "reality" shows.
It's "History" only in name now and I couldn't care less if it became history itself. I used to love it myself but that was back in the day when it actually did what it's name suggests.
 
Not only the price...but what's "on" tv....garbage.
Use to love the history channel, but, it's 100% made up "reality" shows.

Nice to see at least one that agrees. Even netflix and other online streaming options suck as they have no education programs or non biased documentaries. There really is no option for someone who want's to develop them selves.
When was the last time you checked the documentaries on Netflix? I thought they have a decent selection. A few months ago I noticed a bunch of Discovery series and stuff from BBC. In the past they were lacking. Might want to check out their library again.
 
TV is crap, why should I pay for something that has commercials, if I pay for something I've paid for it, period. I don't want to be sold crap no one needs or wants every 5 minutes just to resume watching and now need a minute of recap because people are too stupid to remember what they were watching 90 seconds ago.

The few good shows on the even fewer good channels can be acquired by other means, and even that is soon all going to go the way of TLC. Can anyone remember when TLC was The Learning Channel? Not The Looser Channel it has become, sadly History started going that way so bad that they needed to created a 2nd channel.
 
TV is crap, why should I pay for something that has commercials, if I pay for something I've paid for it, period.
Slight variation...I like to consider costs of 'free over the air' as a basis for cable TV. Signal is better, I don't have to climb on the roof to install it, if it breaks then somebody else (eventually) comes to fix it. I guess that basic cable TV is worth about $10@month net considering both have heavy loads of commercials (based on my private net 'self' cost of $12 @ hour I 'pay' a lot). The real issue for the cable TV folks is that the 700 channel packages for a couple of hundred @ month just are not worth it.
 
Not only the price...but what's "on" tv....garbage.
Use to love the history channel, but, it's 100% made up "reality" shows.
The "H" has had three meanings over the years. In the 90s, it stood for "History". In the 00s, it stood for "Hitler documentaries". Today, it stands for "Hillbillies"
 
Of course cost is the issue. How was I supposed to feel when I had been on the Comcast Extreme 250 Internet service for 4 years straight and then now I have to pay an additional $50 extortion fee for "no cap?" I went 4 years with exactly the same service then just out of the blue. Oh we need another $50, were short man! Wall Street needs a "fix." Get on the horse! The only reason I even had the TV service with them is the "double play pricing." Comcast better be happy they have a monopoly in my neighborhood. If I had any other choice, I would use it as leverage.
 
We have Sony Vue and still only watch two channels regularly, CBS for the news and Disney Jr (I have two little kids), and then we watch Better call Saul and Fargo off the Vue's DVR.
 
Surprised no one has mentioned the sports factor, particularly NFL football. You want to watch that? You have to subscribe to someone.

Once professional sporting leagues realize they can make more money by hosting their own channel for a small fee ($10/month), the cable/satellite providers like Comcast and DirecTV will dissolve in nothing flat.
 
Surprised no one has mentioned the sports factor, particularly NFL football. You want to watch that? You have to subscribe to someone.

Once professional sporting leagues realize they can make more money by hosting their own channel for a small fee ($10/month), the cable/satellite providers like Comcast and DirecTV will dissolve in nothing flat.
I get nfl Sunday ticket on my Roku
 
As many have mentioned, the problem is not the cost, end of story. It is what you get for the cost, I.e. value. Even the article itself states:
"Of those polled, 22 percent said they were “unsatisfied” with the level of value they receive from their provider."
provide value, people will pay the cost.
 
Not only the price...but what's "on" tv....garbage.
Use to love the history channel, but, it's 100% made up "reality" shows.

Nice to see at least one that agrees. Even netflix and other online streaming options suck as they have no education programs or non biased documentaries. There really is no option for someone who want's to develop them selves.
How about this - https://www.netflix.com/title/70305069
or this - https://www.netflix.com/title/80145514
or this - https://www.netflix.com/title/70224651
There are more out there in subject areas other than cosmology and space science, too, if you take the time to look for them.

About non-biased documentaries - are there any out there anywhere?
 
Not only the price...but what's "on" tv....garbage.
Use to love the history channel, but, it's 100% made up "reality" shows.
It's "History" only in name now and I couldn't care less if it became history itself. I used to love it myself but that was back in the day when it actually did what it's name suggests.
As I see it, an even worse channel is "The Learning Channel" - TLC. When it first started, it actually had programs on it that you could learn from, then maybe two or three years later, it became The reaLity Channel. It is certainly a channel I do not miss.
 
SlingTV ftw
Even at Sling's lowest level (FWIW, I had Dish Network), the value is not there for me.

Are you talking about the hopper? I mean sling TV that works off your internet connection. I get the same channels I've always watched for $25 vs my Direct TV $140 I was paying years ago.
I am absolutely not talking about "the hopper." Dish started Sling, and at even $25/mo it is $10 more per month than I am paying now for "TV service." It may be a great value for you, but for me, it is more expensive on a per-channel basis than what I was paying for Dish.

And looking at Sling's web site, they claim it is "a la carte" but then "packages" start at $20/mo. I would like to know how "packages" are a la carte TV. And to top it off, unless you register, you cannot see ANY details of charges, etc. More total lying BS as I see it, or the dying throes of an over-priced service that is no longer getting its gravy from now well-informed customers.
 
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