The Death of Cable TV is in Sight

GCI says to get with the times, it needs to drop its cable TV platform in favor of streaming.

"Alaska’s largest telecommunications company is phasing out its cable TV service in Anchorage and other urban areas in the state, in line with changing habits as viewers increasingly stream their shows over the internet from companies like Netflix or Hulu."

Link for Full Story

Comcast Raising Prices, Fees In January 2021

 Of course they are.

"Comcast will raise the average price on program packages by 3.2 percent in January 2021, as well as implement a regional sports channel fee hike of $2 a month and a Broadcast TV fee increase of up to $4.50 a month, depending upon the market..."

https://tvanswerman.com/2020/11/24/comcast-raising-prices-fees-in-january-2021/

 

As an example of their high prices my MIL's highest utility by far is Comcast at $169.84/mo. ($2,242.08/yr) for rather basic cable & a low speed internet. That's just outrageous! She typically just watches network TV & looks at photos of her grandchildren on FB on an iPad. We've been to the Comcast store multiple times with her trying to reduce the bill but they say it's at the lowest she can go. She's a captive to Comcast as she lives in a condo with only Comcast available and no way to use an antenna as the building is made of reinforced concrete and she's in the shadow of a hillside. 

$2,242.08 per year and rising in a few weeks is elder abuse in my opinion. They need to be investigated by congress but it will probably never happen as they have powerful lobbyists in DC paying them all off.

It Was a Good Decision

Indeed it was a good decision to cut the cord 11 years ago. Have saved many thousands of dollars.

 

Kill The Cable Bill dot com

I was asked today to take a look at https://www.killthecablebill.com/

Lots of good information and reviews for saving money on cable bills.

They've just published an interesting consumer's guide to streaming services so check it out when you get a chance.

https://www.killthecablebill.com/tv/stream/?off

Locast in Sacramento

For our friends in Northern CA...

Locast announced its 29th market today, bringing more than 60 local TV channels to the over 4 million residents in the. Sacramento area. Locast will be available in Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto, just in time for the Big Game this weekend.

Locast offers local broadcast TV via the internet for free, though the service will frequently ask for a $5 donation until that donation is set up by the user. Locast says that offering the channels is a public service “giving access to important local news, storm coverage, emergency information, COVID health and safety updates, election coverage, sports, and entertainment programming to internet-connected devices.”

The channels now available via Locast in the Sacramento area include: KCRA NBC 3, KTXL FOX 40, KXTV ABC 10, KOVR CBS 13, Univision, PBS and PBS Kids, as well as Azteca America, CourtTV, Mystery, MeTV, TrueCrime, QUBO, Telemundo, Circle, The CW, BOUNCE, Movies!, LAFF, COMET, MyNetworkTV, ION, GRIT, Charge!, and more.

The service is accessible to viewers in 16 counties in the Sacramento DMA including Amador, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Sierra, Solano East, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tuolumne, Yolo, and Yuba.

Locast now has over 2.3 million registered users in its available markets across the US. Visit locast.org for more information.

Link:  https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/locast-launches-its-local-tv-service-in-sacramento/?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1977141&tid=2713901&cid=

Almost Half of All Pay-TV Customers Are Likely to Cut the Cord This Year

 

A new report by Parks Associates reveals that it’s likely 43% of all broadband households in the U.S. paying for traditional TV will switch to streaming options within the next 12 months. The main reason? Cable is too expensive. There’s big incentive for TV subscribers to cut the cord in favor of Virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributors like Hulu + Live, YouTube TV, Sling, and more, with cost being just one of the reasons.

The Parks research shows that 17% of vMVPD subscribers are relative newcomers who jumped the traditional Pay TV ship within the last 12 months. Some of their main reasons for making the switch in addition to price include the appeal of the flexibility vMVPDs offer by providing targeted package options on a variety of platforms.

Recent cord cutters also cite switching in order to watch specific channels or programs they couldn’t get with their traditional pay TV package. With dozens of new streaming-only shows and movies being released all the time, it’s obvious people want to be in on the popular originals that come with streaming services and packages.

Plus, people who made the switch in the last 12 months also say there were too many channels they didn’t watch on regular TV to justify paying for it.

“Subscriber losses in traditional pay TV continue, while the vMVPD category continues to grow, thanks to consumer price sensitivity and preferences for platform flexibility,” said Paul Erickson, Senior Analyst, Parks Associates. “Traditional pay-TV operators have online delivery in their roadmaps, if not already deployed. We expect vMVPDs will continue to grow dramatically and will gradually become the dominant offering in the pay-TV landscape.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/almost-half-of-all-pay-tv-customers-are-likely-to-cut-the-cord-this-year/?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1952959&tid=2680994&cid=