Cord Cutting Is Hitting Comcast Harder Than Ever
from the apathy-isn't-a-business-model dept
For a while there, everybody’s least favorite cable company, Comcast, was weathering the cord cutting revolution fairly well. The company’s losses on the cable TV side could simply be recouped over on its broadband side, where a monopoly protected it from having to actually, you know, try.
Things have shifted. Last year, Comcast saw a record 11 percent of its customer base cancel their Comcast cable service in favor of streaming video, over the air broadcasts, or free services like TikTok. And the company lost lost 440,000 traditional video customers in the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, a big bump over the 227,000 customers it lost in the last three months of 2021.
Overall, Internet disruption hasn’t been kind to the cable giant, and it appears to only be getting worse:
Worse, the 2.034 million pay TV customers lost by Comcast in 2022 was a significant uptick over the 1.67 million lost in 2021. Overall, Comcast’s pay TV base eroded by a huge 11.2% last year, and it now serves only around 16.1 million subscribers. Just three years ago, that figure stood at nearly 20 million customers.
The company has had some better success with its own streaming video service, Peacock, adding five million new customers in one quarter. The problem: those users pay significantly less money than the traditional cable customers they’re losing, and Peacock itself has been a net loss so far:
Peacock’s quarterly losses grew to $978 million from Oct. 1 – Dec. 31. In Q3, Peacock reported losses of $614 million. For all of 2022, Comcast and NBCU lost around $3 billion — the “peak”, they claim — building Peacock.
Comcast still has its broadband monopoly to protect itself from pesky innovation. But even that’s facing some new challenges. Fixed 5G wireless providers are starting to nibble away at the company’s frustrated subscriber base, and cooperatives, utilities, and municipalities — buoyed by an historic infusion of broadband subsidies — are also gaining steam.
At this rate Comcast may, someday in the not so distant future, be required to actually try.
Filed Under: 5g, broadband, cable tv, cord cutting, monopoly, streaming tv, tv, video
Companies: comcast
Comments on “Cord Cutting Is Hitting Comcast Harder Than Ever”
There is no “try”…
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Well, they’re Comcast, so there’s no “do” either. Just “talk”, and of course “lobby”.
I love getting my Comcast bill now. I save around $2000 a year compared to when I paid for TV and Phone. Now I spend a few hundred a year on streaming services, but its nothing compared to what I spent on TV.
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What? If you’re still paying Comcast monthly, how could you possibly have been paying them $167/month more previously? Did your plan include unlimited calls to the moon? That’s more than I spend on food.
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It was actually more than $167 because when I cancelled my phone and television portion I increased the speed of my internet to 1 gig. I had been paying around $300 a month for internet/phone/television. Now I pay $125.
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Wow. $300/month for sub-gigabit speeds? Okay, and TV and phone, but in France those come free with the $50/month gigabit service. Or did 10 years ago, anyway.
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I’m in the US and pay around $275/mo for 75 mbit internet, tv, and phone (FIOS). The $300 for these utilities is pretty normal here. Now you know why these companies have been so anxious to preserve their monopoly.
I’d have canceled phone/tv long ago but my wife is a luddite and insists on being able to channel surf.
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I was the same way. You know what made me finally bite the bullet and cancel? When Comcast decided to take away Starz as part of my bundle while not lower the price in any way.
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Luddite in today’s usage means anyone opposed to new technology, but the original Luddites were textile workers who targetted machines whose owners put workers in bad working conditions for the sake of cutting costs.
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In my experience, it’s not really possible on digital systems. There are too many channels, and it takes too long to load each one (like 1-2 seconds). And the channel up/down buttons might take you to channels with just a “not subscribed” message, instead of skipping them as old TVs would.
You Know...
You know if people had an actual choice they would have ZERO customers.
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Hence why Comcast so relentlessly protects its monopoly turf.
Try what though? I think the most likely answer is try for more regulatory capture and try to get more anti-competition laws at the local and national level.
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Or try charging users and streaming services to replace lost income.
Comcrap
I finally kicked Comcrap internet to the curb and went with CenturyLink fios. Cheaper and way faster. I feel sorry for people that have no other choice.
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That’s a sad day in hell when you can hold CenturyLink over Comcast’s head. A really, really funny sad day.
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if your intention was to post a reply that doesn’t make sense, you’ve succeeded.
FoX Revenue Increasing
While cord cutting increases the revenue at FoX has continued to increase. They have had healthy increases each of the last several years. There is a disconnect between the cable providers and the media providers, but the cable providers continue to focus on the Internet providers rather than the companies costing them money. Their efforts to extract money from the companies that they have less control over has not served them well, but they continue to prefer to play nice with the Murdochs and other old media companies to their detriment.
Ziply Fiber customer here, and as noted above, the differences are nothing short of amazing. Better customer service, much lower monthly bill, and a connection that never slows down or drops packets (at least, not so’s I’d notice). Small wonder I’m one of the 227,000 cord cutters.
The upfront equipment cost isn’t quite what I could desire, but there is the option to rent, which is what I chose. That lets me build up some ‘mad money’ for a gateway/router purchase in a few months, and then it’s an even further overall price reduction.
FTTH or FIOS – if you can get it, do so. You’ll thank me soon after.
sumgai
p.s. I am not a paid shill, I’m just a damned happy camper!
nothing will hit (or hurt) any of these companies more than those taking backhander payments from them being forced and then forcing the companies to be honest!
Teetotaler
Can say that I never fell for cable’s internet monopoly, and my patience has been rewarded by Consolidated Communications running gig fiber to my house. Thrilled.
Oh no! Anyway…
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Really all ISP’s are antiquated already. Always on connections to the Internet are not 1st world compatible.
Having a phone with data is worse. No security whatsoever.
TCP/IP is already inadequate for modern innovation.
Options have always been a 1st world perk.
Couldn't happen to a nicer company
I unfortunately used to work at tech support for Comcast, and was fired a few months later. In a nutshell, I made a horrible mistake and actually tried to fix the customers problems. Unfortunately, in doing so that reduced my numbers on sending out a truck to perform onsight support. Additionally, even though we were tech support, we were also tasked to “upsell” those who called in so that they would add to their subscriptions. In other word, we have a pissed off customer calling for help and we in turn would try to sell more stuff to them. WTF?!?!?
“Those pesky millenials not procreating…” – Comcast executive
Stop charging as much in fees as streaming services charge in a month
Broadcast fee for free broadcast tv. RSN fee. Equipment fee. Equipment rentals. Oh and somewhere at the end theres still the big fat regular fee.
Last I checked, even the basic cable tier was more in fees than the actual monthly fee. I could have Sling for less, and youtube tv for a bit more. There’s no value there at all.
I’m Canadian. I wish I had Comcast up here :v
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I’m a Canadian. I do not wish Comcast being here. We do not need more American crony capitalist business models here. It’s bad enough that America exported to us their fucked up copyright system.
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Some actual competition might be nice to shake up the cozy Telus/Rogers/Shaw/Bell world up here that’s left us with some of the highest telecom rates out there.
If you think the Canadian telcos aren’t crony capitalism you’ve not been paying attention.
TRicky?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_IXDMfel80
These TV Stations Sold Out Antenna Viewers in $20 Billion FCC Repack
Why is the FCC paying off Broadcast TV to Swap out of UHF? To lower bandwidth VHF?
Comcast for internet and basic cable is about $200
Here is my assessment of internet quality for Comcast. Note that it is on the assumption that download speed slowdowns are not caused by throttling from the download source rather than the isp. Download speed throttling by the source is possible but seems less likely unless there are traffic limit concerns.
Comcast internet is alright unless you need to download a large file. It seems like it’s basically designed to cater to internet usage not including that, for example viewing webpages (a quick burst of speed to load the page) or streaming videos (a lower speed than maximum perhaps with a burst of speed at the start to move the buffer bar without delay). The connection is capable of delightfully high speeds but quickly throttles down in large file downloads. This seems to have improved somewhat in regards to large downloads from common sources, such as game dozens of GB large from Steam, but it still throttles down and massively increases the time taken to complete after a short high speed period at the start. This is frustrating because one knows the capability is there but is still gated behind what seems to be poor policy and not technical limitations, as the same slowdown is visible even at what can be assumed low usage times such as the middle of the US night.
It might be this is gated behind a limitation on the download source, but I think it more likely that it is the ISP throttling as sometimes there is the rapid progress at the start of a download but it stalls to a lower speed before completion in my example for this, downloading a large program installer that contains music files that help bloat it’s size. The common factor of fast speed followed by slowdown suggests isp throttling is to blame.
Wife text: Bill is $300 you have to fix it,
Me : What do you want to watch?
Her: basic cable and all sports channels and Smithsonian channel.
Me: laughing. They got you via bundle and BS all or nothing channel selection.
Her: Try demanding better price – special deal.
Me : Laughing, I’ll try not to be me. (she knows what happens when I go Cancel all but Gig Internet when I have had it.}
I don’t need tv. It;s all junk.
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