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The Cable Industry's Scariest Chart
Recent price volatility in the media sector got us wondering: is “Cord cutting” the home cable box in favor of online entertainment really hitting critical mass? To answer that question, ConvergEx's Nick Colas turned to our old friend Google Trends.
This resource allows you to track how many Americans are searching the Internet for terms like “Cancel cable” or “Netflix” and see multiyear trends in such activity. In a representative cross section of 9 key searches we find that yes, consumers are exploring their options but it is early days yet. “Cancel cable” is hitting new highs in terms of search volume, but “Get cable” searches still outnumbers it by 9.9x. The bad news: 5 years ago the ratio was 14x.
As for content searches, the search data shows a mixed bag. “HBO” searches are ramping higher, but “ESPN” and “Nickelodeon” are solidly lower.
The big three traditional networks – ABC, NBC, and CBS – are all lower as well. The upshot is that the media landscape has been in flux for several years – Wall Street is only beginning to catch up now. That means more volatility to come as investors begin to discount a distinctly more uncertain future for these names.
You can date the modern era for entertainment to a very specific date: October 23, 2001. That is when Steve Jobs announced the launch of the iPod to a cluster of obviously skeptical (and occasionally bored) journalists. The presentation is vintage Jobs, but without the fanboy hype and spontaneously raucous applause that would be hallmarks of later Apple product launches. Indeed, Jobs sounds at times to be a tad uncomfortable, even as he walks through the merits of a hard drive based music player. Customer acceptance was slow. It took Apple three years to sell 3 million units. Things finally started to click in 2004, with Jobs making it to the cover of Newsweek flashing a fourth generation iPod with the words “iPod, Therefore i Am”.
The rest is pretty much history. The iPod led to the iPhone – that launch presentation was a good deal better received – in 2007 and the iPad in 2010. The point here is that even in the supposedly fast-paced world of consumer technology, mass adoption takes time. Years, not days or months. But when the momentum starts to build, you know it.
Such is the case with the seemingly sudden consumer interest in “Cord cutting” – shorthand for people cancelling their cable TV subscriptions in favor of online entertainment resources. For the better part of the last 30 years, cable has been one of the “Stickiest” items in a household budget. During recessions, cable TV companies barely skipped a beat as customers would – if necessary – delay a mortgage payment or a credit card bill in favor of keeping uninterrupted access to television entertainment. The stability of those cash flows allowed many cable companies to grow with debt-financed capital, giving shareholders outsized returns. Now the news that some cable companies are losing customers is forcing capital markets to reconsider just how loyal cable customers might be and what that means for every company in the entertainment industry ecosystem.
To analyze some of the underlying consumer behaviors, we turn to Google Trends. This tool, available for free online, allows you to track how many times Google users have searched for a specific term over time. For example, enter “Get a dog” into Trends and specify US users, and you’ll see that interest in dog ownership is on the rise in the U.S. and the most pooch-friendly states are West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arkansas. The search term “Get a cat” is only about half as popular on Google, in case you were wondering…
Turning back to cable TV and entertainment trends, here are 9 sample Google Trends analyses that seem to tell the story...
1. “Cancel cable”. As you would expect, Google search interest in this term is rising rapidly. Indexed to the number of such searches in July 2010, for example, there are 1.6x more such queries now. One noticeable seasonal factor: searches for cancelling cable peak at this time of year since households tend to move during the summer. Also worth noting: the search “Get cable” still outnumbers “cancel cable” by 89:9, or 9.9x. Still, “Get cable” as a search query hasn’t grown in 2 years, where “cancel cable” certainly has. Also worrisome: New York and California, two large markets, are also in the top 5 states where “Cancel cable” is most popular.
2. “Cable TV”. Overall interest in cable tv is on the wane, according to the Google Trends data. The graph of search volumes looks like a gentle range of hills, with each peak through time slightly lower than the previous one. Over the last decade, searches for “Cable TV” are down 24%.
3. “Netflix”. On a global basis, Google searches for Netflix continue to climb and have doubled since 2011. In the U.S. the story is different, with searches for the company flat since 2011. Interestingly, the domestic markets that search the most for the online entertainment company are predominantly rural: Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Mexico and Utah.
4. “HBO”. This granddaddy of cable content has seen dramatic growth in search volumes since 2011. Since that time, four times the number of Google search users have queried for “HBO”. We suspect the April 2011 launch of “Game of Thrones” might have something to do with that pickup and highlights what desirable content can do for interest in a given distribution channel.
5. DirecTV and Dish TV. Satellite TV still seems to be a growth business according to the Trend data. DirecTV gets roughly 4x the number of searches as Dish and is seeing more growth in Google searches of late. Search interest in Dish is, however, stable to up modestly.
6. The Big Three Networks – ABC, NBC, and CBS. The long term trend lines for all three major networks are slowly moving lower, as you would expect. ABC still has the lead, with NBC and CBS currently even. Interestingly, “HBO” searches now tie those for NBC and CBS.
7. ESPN and Nickelodeon. Google search interest in ESPN peaked in September 2012 and was down 16% from those highs two years later in September 2014. Measure from July 2014 to July 2015, the drop is 34%. Nickelodeon’s drop in Google search volumes over the last year is 29%.
8. “Buy TV” versus “Buy iPhone”. A phone screen and earbuds is now as viable a video system as an old wooden console television was to the Baby Boom generation. The Google Trend data shows this well, with searches related to TV purchases now as numerous as those related to iPhone purchases. Layer in the other smartphone makers and more people search for purchase information about phones than televisions.
9. “HDMI”. OK, this one is a little nerdy, but it really tells the whole story. In order to take advantage of online entertainment while still using your regular television, chances are you’ll need an HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) plug and a device like Apple TV or Google Chromecast. The number of Google searches for HDMI in the U.S. climbed steadily through 2012 and have leveled off since. That means that consumers already knew about (and had likely purchased a TV with) the necessary hardware to take advantage of online offerings long before the recent “Cord cutting” concerns. When the cable tv cord gets cut physically, it is the HDMI port that takes up the virtual slack.
The upshot of these results is clear: the change in consumer attention away from cable and to other sources of entertainment has been a long time in the making. Interest in everything from ESPN to broadcast channels has been on the wane for years. Compelling content like HBO’s Game of Thrones drives search eyeballs and, it seems, viewers as well. And consumers were upgrading their hardware long before they knew they wanted to watch Netflix or Amazon original programming streaming on the Internet.
Does this mean cable TV is doomed or no one will watch broadcast TV again? Of course not. Consumers largely stopped buying Compact Discs when iTunes really hit, but they didn’t stop listening to music. Even the “Original” iPod design that Jobs showed back in 2001 wasn’t exactly new, with inspirations from a 1950s transistor radio and a more modern land line phone. And that worked out pretty well...
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I just saw Billary Clinton making a speech on my monitor. I wanted to cut my cord immediately but then I decided to look away until the clip ended. What a monster!
ESPN does not cover sports they cover political correctness in the sports world by lefty blow dried pussies and she he's pretending to be women. I hope they dry up and blow away. Monday night football used to draw a 70 share in the 70's and Howard Cosell, Don Merideth and Frank Gifford were fucking drunk off their ass and could do a better job than these political correct pussies and let me throw this in their just for fun, Chris Collinsworth is a left wing pussy too.
I no longer watch or support the NCAA, NBA, NFL or any of the 'Collective' sports. Only individual sucession from the machine can make a difference, even if just for yourself. If I ever watched NASCAR, I wouldn't be anymore after their disgusting kow towing to the Obamanation concerning the CSA flag.
+1
Dumb white males cheering NCCA, NFL, NBA and now even NASCAR are a**holes. Cheering on a bunch of trayvons or politically correct Earnhardt Jr.
F TV and F Hollywood. And Fox News is not conservative. All of TV is total shit. I hope cable crashes and burns along with Hollywood. F them all.
Repetition for retention - I get it. You speak the truth. However, I don't think I've ever seen you post what'd be an answer to the following question; so I will ask, do you own a television?
I decided to bail this year as well. It's going to be a little difficult because so many people I know will reference games in conversation.
The NFL shit the bed years ago - I feel like I'm in court waiting on a verdict with their interminably fucked 'instant replay' system. It KILLS the MOMO of the game, and they frequently get the calls wrong anyway!
Tip to the NFL: People watch your product to GET AWAY from the crap that they deal have with during the week. They really don't want to hear about boobie cancer or rights for Trannies when they're just trying to relax. Kapeche?
I like paying too much money for a lot of channels I don't watch and then even more money to have a DVR that records the few shows I like so I can play them at a time that is convenient to me. I also enjoy waiting on hold for an hour every time something stops working or I have a question about my service. Or burning most of a day waiting for the cable repair guy to show up "between the hours of 9am and 7pm on Tuesday" because if he's 10 minutes late I get 3 cents off my cable bill.
Oh, oh, and you know what I REALLY enjoy? Doing the yearly "if you don't give me another year at the discounted rate I'm going to cancel my service" negotiation with Yolanda Laquitia in their customer disservice department. That's the highlight of my year. I shit you not.
Cut the cord? No fucking way. How boring would my life be if I didn't have all that going on in it?
Missing the Raspberry Pi with Kodi/XBMC in the list...
You crack me up!
Dammit: Have you been using the camera and microphone in my computers again? That "perfectly voiced" my entire cable experience...it wasn't quite as bad this year...must be they see the cut cords everywhere!
reading this made my day... this is exactly how I used to feel before I cancelled TWC
You don't need a service to use an HDMI digital antenna, just plug it into your flat screen.
30 channels free, all major networks, PBS, all you need if you want to watch the boob tube.
Damned straight. Good picture too. All programing sucks anyway. It simply provides background noise to drown out the voices...the...the voices in my head!!
I don't know about you, Oldwood, but those voices in my head have some damn good ideas!!
"In favor of online entertainment"
...more like in favor of paying the electric bill.
porn is free
Want to really cut the cable look up jailbreak fire stick tv. Fire stick is $40, about an hour to put Kodi and SuperRepo on it, and you have all the tv/video you ever want. Pays for itself in less then a month.
"Does this mean cable TV is doomed or no one will watch broadcast TV again?"
Traditional media companies are fucking stupid and arrogant, so maybe. It's a different monster than the music industry, which has always had some form of personal, get-it-when-you-want-it consumption, be it records, 8-tracks or CDs. The transition to digital was much less painless for the music industry.
Broadcast TV has always, and will always, rely on your ass being planted in front of a TV set when they tell you to. NBC, Fox and Disney have part of a clue, and they make many shows available on Hulu, with a 1 day or 7 day lag. They will truly fuck the non-ISP owned cable companies when Hulu offers a no-ads service for around $20/month. Dish and DirecTV are already circling the drain.
ATT-DirecTV now one company. The only way that my house can fight it is through individual secession, and drop paid TV. It's coming. It's harder than I though it would be, even knowing how agenda driven the 'providers' have become.
It's harder than I though it would be
It's actually easier than you think it might be. What you need is a ROKU Streaming Box. There are no monthly fees associated with a ROKU Box, just channels that charge a monthly fee like Netflix. If you only load free channels in your menu you would not incur any charges at all. You are not limited to only one ROKU box. I have three ROKU Boxes connected to three separate TV's in my home. I pay $8 a month for Netflix which can be watched on 2 (of three) TV's at the same time with only one account. For $12 a month you can have Netflix playing on many more ROKU Boxes at the same time. A ROKU Box also makes every other box that would connect to a TV obsolete including DVD players. There are dozens of channels that allow you to rent or buy movies so you no longer need to deal with physical disc's. When you rent a movie you have several days to watch it and if you buy a movie you can watch it anytime and anywhere at no additional cost. Currently there are over 2,000 + channels available on ROKU. Due to the rapidly growing popularity of ROKU TV manufacturers are including ROKU functionality into the TV turning it into the ultimate Smart TV. Best of all those TV's do not cost more than other Non-Smart TV's. I recently purchased a 32" ROKU TV for $175 while other 32" TV's without any Internet Streaming capability were also the same price. The Menu provided by the ROKU functionality also makes it much easier to use with it's Blue Tooth remote with just a few buttons making it very simple to use.
Yeah, I suspect it's part of my conditioning. A neighbor (Country Neighbor) recently told me how they too ditched satelite and went to ROKU and Netflix. Now ROKU requires high speed internet right? A lot of bandwidth. So I'd need to up my 30 Gig allocation?
Depending on how much programming you watch and whether it's High-def, consider 100gb/month as the required minimum. Some of those 2-hour HD movies can use up 4gb.
All you need is a good internet connection, which for some of us is a real problem. Even at my business I can only get the bottom end plan from at&t which is poor and worse depending on the moment. Home is even worse as we are a long way from a line connection so our signal is weak, and same for cellular. No amount of money apparently can fix it. Maddening.
Unfortunately for the time being, the fix is to move to where the signal is better.
It is ALL full on propaganda to brainwash the sheep and control them. And yes it works. F TV and F Hollywood.
COMCAST runs ads 24/7 every 10 mins on all channels telling us how great they area-or advertise that you can call your cable comany when you move! bullshit
Cable is VERY POOR VALUE FOR MONEY-especailly if you watch maybe 10 out of 90 channels regularly
All the manufacturers should quit wasting their money on advertising and just make quality products that would sell themselves.
How many peolple read forums or consumers choice type sites before spending major money on items these days, a lot do. A bad paragraph in consumers choice will stop people from buying the item. For Instance don't buy any GE appliances they are junk and they do not have parts!
How many of you guy's actually watch a youtube add? None, just what I thought. This is the industry just Fn wasting our time.
How much better can their profit margins be without the wasted add money and make a better product.
If you go to a major news outlet to see some so called news they force you to watch an add first. How many people watch them. None I mutitask and watch one wmeanwhile the other one plays the add.
In the old days without pvr's and the skip feature they had us by the curly's but not today, and yet they are still trying to fi=orce these shit adds upon us. Even during a show they take up the entire bottom of the tv to advertise ( try watching a movie with subtitles when they do this).
PLease PLease someone smarter than me start a new ***tube that only has side bar adds if any and watch youtube go bankrupt quickly. Croud fund it I'm In.
I cannot wait until we can rent, only the shows we want to watch and on our time, without any adds and without a huge monthly subscription.
That's how I ha e run my business for thirty years. ZERO advertising and I'm the closest thing to a salesman....which I most definitely am not. It sucked bad for the first five years but if the economy would quit fucking me it would have been fine since. The pro lem is that quality products and services seem to have a cap where when you go beyond a certain scale, quality drops off quickly. Larger businesses find that marketing is cheaper than a quality reputation, and go that way. They can buy new customers cheaper than retaining existing and growing more. Imports ha e put even more pressure on that equation and I find that even after 30 sterling years of reputation, people will still be persuaded by slick marketing and low prices.
Adblock Plus for Firefox/Chrome is the bee's knees.
We've been w/ satellite for more than 20 years, in four different states. Service has rarely been a problem, unlike what I've read so much about cable providers. Of course, Television providers ain't what it used to be. 250 channels, and I'm watching the Rifleman and HGTV. Time is coming when we ditch the boob Prog-Gay tube.
Cancelling cable (tv) and then getting cable internet to be able to use Netflix, as only in the densest population centers DSL is fast enough??
Not if you want HD. You need about 25mb. Locally, this restricts me to comcast or AT&T. But Google Fiber is coming. Yes, I know big brother-wise there isn't much difference. But Google at least doesn't have the legendarily bad customer service of comcast or AT&T, and unlike uverse, Google runs the fiber to your house. I have confidence in 1GB Cat5 for 50 feet. Not so much for a half-mile.
So Google will magically be able to overcome the immense costs to lay a fiber to every home?
Before I lived in a building (condo complex) that had FTTH.
Very nice, but nowadays my Comcast cable is almost as fast and stable - and I'm happy I have that level of provision at all (up on a hill with a few other houses.)
it is hard to decide because all/
nearly of the content sucks extremely
hard, overrun and shredded, decayed and decaying.
that must be the dirt of life
as we know it. people are destined to
dig through the dirt and/or transcend.
.
the dogs bark and then the dogs
stop barking; signals come and go.
listening and music, do those even
go together any ... more?
I'm surprized the article didn't mention, the fact that cable (not withstanding it's entertainment value) is wayyyyyyy, wayyyyyyy overpriced, as it has been for decades.
Sure it is advanced technologies at work in nearly everyone's home & often in their businesses, churches, and schools, and it remains to be overpriced. Cable TV bundled with the internet and telephone and the ridiculousness becomes even more glaring.
I turned off the satellite TV in 2008 for one reason, they were overpriced then, and still are. I think cable TV users & pet owners are the perfect examples of the 'typical American' that justifies supporting their usual habits, because it is easier than listening to your wife bitch.
wwxx
At least pets are good for your mental health.
As long as you don't go pet hoarder/crazy cat lady anyway.
You obviously have not met my dog.
He's a mental case, but I love him so he's here to stay.
Maybe I'm channeling my wife...
In the MSM analysis of media, the only thing people do is turn towards other MSM alternatives (ex: dropping cable to get netflix - LOL: same MSM content).
Should we never mention all the alternative sources for real entertainment out there today? Free *original* web novels and online comix galore, plus all sorts of websites or YT channels by real people offering original stuff good enough that enough people actually donate $ to fund more content.
There is NO WAY the MSM can compete with the millions of motivated content providers who see the opportunity and are running with it. This should start becoming more and more apparent soon, and it will be difficult for TPTB to block these alternatives to their propaganda...
Yeah,
I really miss Kai the Hatchet Guy and Antoine the "They rapin' everybody out here" homie.
Megyn Kelly's blood leakage just can't compete with the classics.
P.S.: it is clearly still better to actually DO STUFF, rather than seek distractions from the internet, but at least with the independent internet sites and content, you are getting stuff that isn't 100% diabolically manipulative and harmful...
So even for all the people out there I see who seem to prefer avoiding their problems, rather than solving them, I expect that they could start to get better in a 2 step process:
1. get tempted to distract yourself with something less harmful than TV / Hollywood / etc.
2. gradually start to see that things can be different, and then start to really change for the better!
(Well, it's a hope!)
Let me tell you a story. Back in 2010 I bought a 56" flat screen tv thinking this was going to be the best thing that ever happen to me.
Shortly after I tried watching the movie, "TROY" It took me months to watch that movie because of commercials that turned a 2 hr movie into a late night 4 hour movie which I didn't finish watching because I had to hit the sack.
Finally! I turned on the TV one night around 5 oclock and there it was. TROY! half way thru. It took about 3 hours, 10 minutes of movie, 15 minutes of commercials to get thru it but I finally watched the whole thing.
After that I said "Fuck This" Cancelled my $76 a month cable subsciption and turned off the TV.
A couple of years later I was walking by the remote and wondered, "I wonder if TV has changed." So I turned on the TV and before the screen got light I heard the words, "Ask Your Doctor." I immediately hit the off button and it's been off ever since.
Now the wife a few years ago heard about a new movie and asked me she picked up the DVD if I would watch it with her. I said sure, sound good.
So she rented the move, stuck it in the DVD and about ten minutes later we looked at each other and asked, "Do you want to watch this?" Both of us said no and we went on to doing what we usually do, reading and puttering.
Since then we have unsubscibed to all the TV crap, save ourselves a ton of money and dont miss it at all.
Only problem is that we have this big black rectangle hanging on the wall that we dont know what to do with.
Sell it just before the Superbowel next year and never look back, they call it programming for a reason.
If you have yet to shoot your tele with a 12 gauge shotgun using #4 buckshot, you haven't lived. Try it, you will like it.
We cut the cord several months ago. Put $100/month back in our pocket. So then Comizon Warner wants to do a closure interview on why we broke up. I simply told them we did not want to pay for TV anymore. "What if the price was less?" We don't want to pay for TV anymore. "What if we offered more channels?" I don't want to pay for TV anymore. "What if we threw in a hydroboomfudgie?" I don't want to pay for TV anymore. "On a scale... how was our service?" Great. "How was our customer service?" Great. "How was the reliability of the products you used?" Great. "So, Mr. Parousia, can I ask you one more time, why do you want to discontinue your service?"
Short everything that charges a fee for anything that includes commercials.
Do you have local channels available and do ya'll watch it?
Local channels are available via digital antenna, but we do not watch. Strangely, life has not ended for our family. We talk to each other more and actually rather enjoy it. The only thing I wouldn't mind watching would be the Pirates games on the local cable sports channel (Root Sports). Living with the cord cut has been a lot easier than expected. Give it a try.
You're leading the way. Thx for the encouragement.
If your TV has HDMI, you can hook a computer up to it. I use a 55" Samsung TV for that purpose and that purpose only. Youtube and the like are quite nice on it.
Funny thing is I played HS foozball but can't stand seeing grown up adults all wild eyed and crazy about grown men playing with a ball anymore.
I guess that I grew out of it.
Football was much more fun when I was wearing the pads and taking the hits. I played mostly offense. I gave up watching sports consistently a long time ago, when I realized no matter how much I get into the game (i.e. emotional investment), I could not influence the outcome even in the slighted bit.
Someone should do a correlation calculation between reality TV and cable subscriptions. It would appear that there's a <-.80 (inverse) correlation between the two. I can't imagine watching reality television AND commercials.
For the record, I have never owned a television and split a cable bill once in the dorms for a semmester about 15 years ago (roommate's TV). Ironically, while I was in college, I sold Comcast door-to-door the summer it bought AT&T broadband 12 years ago. I sold in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities (Anoka, Coon Rapids, Mounds View). I was able to pay rent and save enough to cover text books for the next year, working about 30 hours a week. My empiricle observation: the greatest percentage of cable tv subscribers lived in apartments and trailer courts, because the subscriber had to pass a credit check back then to get satellite TV (not sure what's required now). Also, I found the greatest of cable thieves in the same locales. I always gave them an option of buying cable or doing them the favor of cutting the chord (sometimes chords get cut voluntarily).
Generally, those that wanted to buy cable, did so begrudgingly, stating they'd prefer an a la carte method purchase. I told them it's been discussed but the provider found that a few of the channels cost the most money; and most channels are not worth the bandwidth for which they occupy (QVC, <insert most commercial ridden stations>, etc).
It's never really advertised that often, but there exists Free-to-Air (FTA) stations too:
http://www.tech-faq.com/free-to-air-receivers.html
I pull in over 40 digital channels with my old TV tower.
I was gonna pass, but...
Back in 1995. the 49ers were gonna play San Diego in the Super bowl, and one of the 'Hill Guys' had a place in town with a for the time monster TV set, so a bunch of us 49er fan Hill Guys got invited. Weather had been lousy, sounded like a good party. Come Thursday, weather started clearing up, and by Saturday, things were looking GOOD for flying (paraglider/hanglider style). So a bunch of us local para and hang pilots wound up at a coastal ridge site that is very, very good when it is working, and it was perfect - 12-15 NW and not a cloud. Cold, but doable if you dress right, and I got 3 hours of just boating around, doing touch and goes, just flying about anywhere. Perfect! Afterwards, we all went to a bar/resturant that is so fucking far out in the boonies they still smoke inside and had ourselves eats and beer and comdraderie to beat the band. By then the game was over, and we found out the good guys had won, which made the day all the better.
So for fucking weeks afterwards, my Hill friends would ask where was I during game day, and I'd say 'Flying', and they would look at me like I was a freak retard, 'cause I passed up the chance to watch the SUPER BOWL to do something else (that happens to deeply satisfy my soul).
Haven't watched a Super Bowl since - guess I just prefer doin' to watchin', but it really was the final turn off for TV for me. My daughter watches some, but not much, she has a lot of good stuff going on and real friends that like doing stuff other than veging in front of a screen.
Besides, I spend WAAY too much time in front of a computer, much of it hanging out with you assholes on ZH, to watch TV.
No one really gets it. Cable might suck, and it does, Im more of a DTV fan. I get NFL Ticket and over 200 channels at any time with HD and a DVR where I can record 5 channels at once. It's $30 a month for 12 months, $80 a month second year.
But those who assertively say, I'm cutting the cable, but everyone I know who said that wants to watch baseball, football, Olympics, news etc at my house. Then it's I wanna watch shows on HBO, Showtime, A&E, etc etc etc.
So if there cord cutting experts can watch these channels and shows at home, how much is it gonna cost?
ESPN channel
NFL Channel
Disney
HBO
Showtime
NBC, ABC local fox network
CBS (Yes, CBS doesn't archive on Netflix so if you like their shows, their new NFL coverage or Big Brother,etc) there's a monthly charge for that.
A&E
History
NatGeo
Nick at night
HGTV
Commedy Central
Hulu Plus
Netflix
Spike (If you like UFC or Ultimate Fighter and movies)
Discovery
MTV
USA Network
Lifetime (if you're married)
Oprah
So add these up, plus premums for faster downloads, HD or 4K quality. I don't really know how you'll get a better price.
Some or many won't really understand or comprehend, which is why it took almost 35 years to get the debate going on cutting the cord.
Oh, did I mention if you want that content streamed to your TV, tablet, iPad, Android, insert gadget here - You're talking some real costs.
With that much viewing, how did you have the time to comment?
Of course the author is basing his reasoning on the premise that everyone uses Google to search the web.
He entirely misses the fact the those most likely to kick the tv habit are also those that give Google the middle finger.
I am a trailblazer - never paid for cable tv. Only money Comcast ever got from me is for an internet connection.
Just like ad blocking is taking off as more and more people learn how to get rid of those annoying ads when they surf the web, cord cutting is taking off as people realize they can get more entertainment, more conveniently, for 1/10 the cost.
Canceling my Directv several years ago was the best thing I ever did. Switched to a Roku and Netflix after reading about it on Enwealthen, and am only paying $8/month for more quality programming than I can watch in a lifetime. And best of all, no commercials. God, I hate commercials.
Cable f**king sucks. And so does the cr@p Verizon pushes on us.