U.S. Consumers Pay $1,600 Annually For Cable TV Channels They Don’t Watch
from the thanks-for-nothing dept
One of the reasons that propaganda mills like Fox News don’t take a bigger hit from advertising boycotts is because U.S. consumers pay billions of dollars annually for the channel, even if they don’t watch it. More specifically, Fox rakes in $1.8 billion in carriage fees to include the channel in bloated cable bundles, despite the fact that just 3 million of the nation’s 90 million cable TV subscribers actively watch.
Of course, this extends to other channels as well.
One new study estimates that U.S. consumers pay $1,600 annually for cable TV channels they never watch thanks to the dated, bloated, traditional channel bundle model. It also found that the average cable subscriber has access to 190 channels–but only regularly watches 15 of them. All the while, the average cable TV bill has grown 52% in the last three years, from around $96 to $147.
Customers have been “cutting the cord” (axing traditional cable TV) at an historic rate, and it’s not particularly hard to see why:
By paying $147 per month to watch only 15 channels, the average pay-TV customer shells out $9.57 per channel watched – an amount that rivals the monthly cost of most streaming services.
That per-channel price is even higher for the many viewers who watch fewer stations. Less than 50 percent of pay-TV subscribers regularly watch more than 10 channels, and less than a quarter regularly watched 20 or more channels in their subscription.
Streaming providers are also seeing slower growth because, in part, everyone (including top streaming outfit Netflix) is continually raising rates on users. I thought research firm MoffettNathanson issued an investor note that aptly captured the current state of the TV industry:
Many of the media companies have made conscious decisions to strip-mine their cable networks, shifting their best content to their streaming platforms. At the same time, they have raised prices relentlessly to offset declining viewership. Both strategies have alienated distributors, who are now more ambivalent than ever about trying to retain video subscribers who are themselves increasingly ambivalent about lower and lower quality video services for which they are asked to pay higher and higher prices.
You might recall the push for “a la carte” TV channels (being able to buy cable TV channels individually) was even a pet project of the late John McCain in the aughts, though his legislative efforts on that front never really went anywhere. The cable industry rejected most requests for such pricing by claiming it would drive up prices for consumers (this, if you didn’t notice, happened anyway).
And while the rise of streaming competition has mitigated the problem significantly (42% of Americans have ditched cable TV and gone broadband only), the tactic of forcing US cable TV consumers to buy massive bundles filled with channels they don’t watch remains a very real annoyance. And, in the case of ongoing financing of Fox News, in more ways than one.
Filed Under: bundles, cable tv, fox news, internet tv, streaming
Comments on “U.S. Consumers Pay $1,600 Annually For Cable TV Channels They Don’t Watch”
I was definitely along for the ride on the push for a la carte back when it was happening, but recently have heard a couple of economists talk about the phenomenon of bundling and how there’s a surprising amount of durability in it. One counterintuitive tidbit: Seemingly completely unrelated content makes strong and resilient bundles, like shoving together home shopping and sports. It’s made me watch the current re-bundling that’s occurring in the streaming era with a slightly more tolerant eye. With streaming we sort of got what we wanted, and now we’re going back.
The cable industry rejected most requests for such pricing by claiming it would drive up prices for consumers…
Whilst being fully aware the opposite was likely to happen because they’ve never been for the customer, hence their double-dipping by showing adverts and charging high fees. That’s why I’ll never be a cable or Sky customer.
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3 Mil Is A Dream
>And, in the case of ongoing financing of Fox News, in more ways than one.
Better watch out. After the CN+ debacle, in which the Cable Network shut down their streaming app after less than one month due to a lack of subscribers, a-la-carte TV could be the demise of several basement-rated stations. For lefty “news” networks, most of their viewers nowadays come from people trapped in an airport terminal. Fox may have a bloated bundle, but they still have way more viewers.
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For lefty “news” networks, most of their viewers nowadays come from people trapped in an airport terminal.
Funny, I wasn’t aware Faux News is Left-aligned.
CNN may have a bloated bundle, but they still have way more viewers.
True.
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Actually they don’t. CNNs ratings are far below Fox, even as Fox has veered to the left under Lachlan Murdoch. The only reason they are still viable is due to the shows of Tucker Carlson and one or two other right leaning pundits.
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Do you ever listen to yourself?
You sound like you’re in grade school fighting with other children:
“My news network is better than yours”
“Nuh Uh, my news network has more viewers”
“Nuh uh, your lefty news sucks”
“Nuh uh, your righty news sucks”
“I know you are but what am I”
Re: Re:
You do know that was two different ACs commenting, right? If you’re representative of what public schools produce, I really fear for the future of America.
Re: You need to update your talking points K-dawg
Literally the only people who ever cared about CN+ are Right Wing Nut Jobs 3 months ago.
‘U.S. Consumers Pay $1,600 Annually For Cable TV Channels They Don’t Watch’
the trvesty is that they dont even want them but are forced to have them and pay this ridiculous amount annually because NO ONE IN CONGRESS HAS THE BALLS TO SAY TO THE PROVIDERS ”ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”!!
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FTFY. If you subscribe to cable, you are a sucker.
If you pay for shows you don’t watch, you are a sucker.
Everyone has a choice, subscribe to the services you find value and don’t to the ones you don’t.
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And when enough people have quit subscribing, the cable operators will point to online streaming services as the cause, claiming they must be pirating the content they commission. They definitely won’t recognize that they’re no longer competitive.
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If you pay for shows you don’t watch, you are a sucker
Unless you’ve watched every show on every streaming service you subscribe to, that makes you a sucker.
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Non sequitur.
Re: Re: Re:2
It’s never a non-sequitur to point out someone’s inconsistencies.
Re: Re: Re:3
Point to the inconsistency, then. Until you do, your original comment is considered a non sequitur.
Re: Re: Re:4
I pointed to the inconsistency in my first response, so I’ll direct you back to that one.
Re: Re: Re:5
So your first comment on this page is a non sequitur. Noted.
Re: Re: Re:6
No, it’s right on point. Love the “noted.” Am I going to run into trouble with the TSA? The DHS? Who will be reading the notes, exactly? Your Mom?
Re: Re: Re:7
No, it’s right on point.
If it were, you would’ve been able to show how.
Am I going to run into trouble with the TSA? The DHS?
Oh, God. Another conspiracy nutjob.
Who will be reading the notes, exactly? Your Mom?
How old are you? Ten?
Re: Re: Re: Can’t seem to watch even a minuscule fraction
Can’t seem to use even a minuscule fraction
Not of the bandwidth of my broadband internet connection…
Not of the content it makes available….
Probably not of more than about 10 TV channels…
We are in fact in an era of abundance of content, there’s too much to begin to consume it all. That doesn’t make me a sucker.
Re: Re: Re:2
That’s part of the point of the article, TBH. The author knows that cable services are making people pay for bundles containing more channels than they can watch as well as including channels they’re not remotely interested in watching.
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According to the article, they are in fact doing that at a historically high rate. At some point, nobody but the “suckers” will be left. I’m sure the people in charge plan to be gone by the time that number gets too low to sustain the business. (It’ll likely happen when enough of the subscribers die—or perhaps when they move to nursing homes, but only when such homes stop subscribing.)
People are getting wise and discovering addition through subtraction.
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Yup. Addition to quality of life through subtraction of cable/satellite fee payments. 😉
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No one is forcing you to subscribe to cable TV.
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And nowhere did Pixelation say they subscribe to cable. I know we’re supposed to be able to read between the lines of what’s said, but you’re the first I’ve ever heard of to receive a message that wasn’t even vaguely implied.
The report is from an organization dedicated to cord cutting, hardly a reliable source, using data from an online survey, a notoriously skewed method. Shockingly, their conclusion was CORD CUTTING GOOD, CABLE BUNDLES BAD.
A quick search suggests that the average consumer actually pays about $120/month for both TV & Internet services (https://www.doxo.com/insights/united-states-of-bill-pay-doxoinsights-cable–internet-report/ ). That’s way less, and makes cable look like a not unreasonable bargain, even if one is only watching 15 channels or so (and I’m really suspicious of that 15 number — strikes me it’s more likely that that’s the number of stations people can remember while taking a survey. I took a quick look at my channel guide and got to 30 without a sweat, and I don’t watch that much television).
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Those numbers don’t appear to make any differentiation between people buying both services and people buying only 1. Meaning it’s being pulled down by all the cord cutters paying less than $120/mo for just internet. Without some sort of breakout, it appears unusable for the current discussion.
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Unless the cord-cutters make up a massive amount of the population, it’s not enough to raise the average of cable bundles up to what the original survey is claiming, so I’ll stick with my analysis.
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Translation: “The survey linked to in the article doesn’t say what I want it to, so I’ll just ignore it in favor of inaccurate data that helps me feel better.”
Re: Re: Re:2
Actually, my comment read fine without translation, but thanks!
Re: Re: Re:3
Actually, my comment read fine without translation…
No, your comment read like glorification of bad practice in data gathering.
…but thanks!
You’re welcome.
Re: Re:
Isn’t it common sense that the phrase “cord-cutter” wouldn’t apply if someone were still using at least 1 service over the cord, and that it wouldn’t apply to someone who had never subscribed at a location? Maybe we need a better term, if that’s not how people are using it.
My folks cut the cord to not give any money to Fox News for that, but one of their landing spots was Youtube TV, which they very shortly afterward discovered also gives a cut to Fox News directly. So not even cable replacements are safe.
Fox News really is quite the beneficiary of socialized revenue.
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Sounds an awful lot like their spiritual leader Ayn Rand
Re: Re:
Atlas shrugged. He doesn’t much care about customers.
news on streaming is still untested
Speaking of CNN+, it’s still totally untested how or even if news makes the jump to streaming. Whatever form it takes, it would need to appeal to younger viewers who’ve never subscribed to cable and don’t bother with broadcast. They get their news for free on the internet, and the quality is what you’d think it is, but that habit of news = free is ingrained. Expecting people to pay for a news add-on might simply not work.
So what if CNN were integrated into HBO Max (in some way that appeals to a global audience, since that’s what HBO Max is aiming for)? Whatever form news takes on streaming, I bet it’s fundamentally different from the forms it has taken on cable and broadcast. FoxNews isn’t the form to mimic. It doesn’t appeal to the young audience and the demented obsession with domestic political wrangles would not appeal to the global audience.
It is any wonder pirate sites running from places like China are gaining traction, including a couple that have almost 8,000 channels for at little as $15/month,
Since they operate out of China, American laws do not apply to them, when is why all the big pirate IPTV takedowns have not affectedf them.
China is allowing them to operate from their soil, and US laws have no jurisdiction in CHina
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Since they operate out of China, American laws do not apply to them, when is why all the big pirate IPTV takedowns have not affected them.
But at least one international treaty does apply, making your comment literally pointless.
Re: Re:
They are free to try.
As long as they file it in China, that is.
Have fun dealing with the Chinese Courts.
Re: Re: Re:
Because American companies don’t hire law firms in all the requisite countries? Are you hearing yourself?
Re: Re: Re:2
I think the point was more that China doesn’t much respect the rule of law, instead using it as a pretext for doing whatever they want (…moreso than most other countries). Remember when they arrested two foreign people for “spying” and then mysteriously released them when an “unreleated” case against someone from China was dropped? And of course there’s everything that’s going on in “independent” Hong Kong.
The USA itself does not respect trade agreements when they’re inconvenient. I would not be shocked if Chinese representatives pointed that out and then the courts found some “unrelated” reason why the lawsuit could not proceed. And then maybe after some backroom government negotiations an appeals court would reinstate the lawsuit against a few arbitrary victims who hadn’t talked to the right Chinese officials.
I long ago figured out what a rip off cable tv was. I dropped it about the time they went digital. By that time I was watching so little tv I didn’t bother to update by buying a digital capable tv.
Finally after some years of no tv, I bought a new one. I still wont’ subscribe to ‘pay tv’ as I don’t watch enough to make it worth it.
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Karl Bode’s hero is Jeffrey Epstein. I can’t imagine how often he rapes his sibling’s kids.
Funny that you say propaganda mills but don’t point to one such instance.
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Fuck off, Phillip, you defamatory piece of shit.
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Philip Cross literally eats fresh dog shit
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With sauerkraut and mustard.
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I’m pretty sure he’s raw doggin’ it.
Re: Re: Re:2
Not a chance. He’s an incel, remember?
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I am having a hard time picturing Karl Bode being friendly with Epstein.
(He is not, and never will be, friendly with Epstein.)
Re: Re:
Phillip, on the other hand…
But even...
At $10 per Channel, for 10-15 Channels…
IS STILL $100+ Per Month.
The Logic is missing a few things here.
Why not pay 10 times the price that CABLE pays for the channel?
If you want ESPN at Cable Price of $8 per customer, thats $80. This would really reflect how well people would want to FORK over $80 for a few sports and Commercials.
Libtards everywhere
CNN and MSNBC benefit the same as Fox news.. but lets pretend not..
Re: The funny part
Is in the past we have had a display of the Prices Cable pays for each service, and its Strange that most are under $0.30 each. Avg Price over all of them is about $0.14
I’m content with Directv. I do use the guides to checkout what’s on, so I feel I get my money’s worth. Until the satellite falls out of orbit — I’ll keep Directv. However, I’ll have to reconsider if the shows I want to watch start shifting to streaming services.
Perhaps this is an inevitable shift away from traditional cable/TV/movie type entertainment?
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Given that the choice is between watching on their schedule and watching on your schedule, with the ability to pause, it is only inertia keeping the traditional systems alive.
I wanted ala cart back in the 70’s, when cable was under $40/month and you only had maybe 30 channels. I asked my cable provider back then about it. They say sorry we can’t do that. Cable was like that 30 years ago and your just talking about it now.
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There was every excuse back then. With modern computers being so much more powerful, there’s now zero excuse. If you can’t tell the difference, that’s a you problem.
Cable
I ditched cable years ago, no more 11 commercials in a row. I had an antenna installed and have 55 channels. And its free!!! And I use Roku to stream free stuff. People that pay for cable are flushing money down the drain.
There’s something to one-by-one
Both Fox News and MSNBC would survive solo offerings as they are both watched by roughly half of cable subscribers.
I would order neither. Actually, I’d be happy to go channel by channel! Maybe then I could cut out the sports and news stations, and local broadcast.
That would also save me from paying the rebroadcast sports fees and the local prop-em-up fees.
Actually, removing phone and internet (and garbage fees) our cable bill is about $90 per month for “400+” stations. So… technically less than picking up those stations via Amazon Prime channel packs and studio subscriptions. But not by much.
Honestly though, I’d love to dump the $30-some in fees for crap I never turn on! Rebroadcast? Why does never-watched sports fees end up on my bill. Why am I funding baby ball MLB and boring ball NBA and protest ball NFL?
They get my money when I’d be just as happy if they folded permanently!
a la carte
If the cable executives sincerely believed a la carte would result in higher prices, they would have done it voluntarily a long time ago.
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^This.
It won't matter
The lobbyists have it all locked up. No regulation so no matter what we get it will cost us more. There is no winning here. Nearly unfettered capitalism will win and the providers will make all the money and so will the politicians. Cutting the cord is a lie.
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And back when smallpox was killing 31%of the people infected with it, do you think people just shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, there’s just no winning against this disease”? Of course customers won’t win if everybody just gives up now. Is that what you want? Are you being paid by a cable company to sow apathy and discord in the ranks?
Both cable and streaming in trouble
If they don’t go back to the old pick 10 or 15 channels of your choice, then cable and streaming services are in trouble due to p2p availability of channels through sources outside the USA. Either take less profits or find you’ve got no business to turn to.