Well you know cable is scared when you start to see more “you can’t save money with cord cutting” stories pop up. Now once again we are finding more of these stories.
This week a site called Decider.com posted a story on cord cutting called “Never Mind the Analysts, Cord-Cutting’s Still Not A Thing”…
So let’s take a moment and break down what it has to say.
According to this story, cord cutting is not a thing because if you subscribe to a live TV streaming service you are not a cord cutter.
So let’s see how that argument holds up.
According to Fortune, at the end of 2016 there were about 26 million U.S. households that no longer pay for cable TV—whether they are cord nevers, who never had cable, or cord cutters, who cut the cord on traditional pay TV.
According to Allen Wolk, the author of the story, “Where I’m standing, paying a large cable company for access to pay-TV and broadband is paying a large cable company for access to pay-TV and broadband, regardless of how it is actually delivered.”
Okay, so if you pay for a live TV streaming service, such as Sling TV or DIRECTV NOW, you cannot be a cord cutter because these services are owned by cable companies. So how many “cord cutters” really pay for a live TV streaming service? According to AdAge, 1.7 million U.S. households pay for Sling TV, and AT&T says it has almost 500,000 subscribers to DIRECTV NOW. So in total that is about 2.2 million U.S. households out of 26 million that subscribe to a live TV streaming service.
Add in all the other live TV streaming services, and it is estimated that between 3 and 4 million U.S. households pay for a live TV streaming service. Let’s say the number is 4 million. That means 22 million U.S. households do not pay for a live TV streaming service.
Add in the fact that quarter after quarter the number of pay-TV subscribers, even counting streaming services such as Sling TV and DIRECTV NOW, keep losing subscribers. According to AT&T in the second quarter of 2017 it lost 199,000 subscribers even after it included DIRECTV NOW numbers.
So even using Allen Wolk’s own argument, you can say 22 million U.S. households are cord cutters and do not pay a traditional cable TV company for their TV.
So what is cord cutting?
The real question here is what is cord cutting. That is a question with no real answer because it can mean different things to different people. What we consider cord cutting is breaking free from long-term contracts and overpriced bills.
So if you use one of these contract-free live TV streaming services and you save money, yes, you are a cord cutter.
We go into this more in a story HERE if you want to read more about what cord cutting is.
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