Cable news may soon get it's long awaited comeuppance for peddling leftist propaganda and pushing socialist agendas, because the revolution of cord cutting is upon us. According to research firm eMarketer, american consumers are cutting the cord at an even faster rate than expected. The research shows that 22.2 million adults will cut the cord in 2017 for satellite or telco TV services, a full 33% jump from 2016. At this time last year, eMarketer speculated the number of cord cutters would be somewhere around 15.4 million, but it appears their estimates were wildly off.
Even more intriguing, the phenomenon of "cord-nevers people who have never subscribed to paid TV will rise 5.8% this year, to 34.4 million.
Younger audiences continue to switch to either exclusively watching [over-the-top] video or watching them in combination with free-TV options, said Chris Bendtsen, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. Last year, even the Olympics and [the U.S.] presidential election could not prevent younger audiences from abandoning pay TV.
The study did not include internet TV services, such as Dish Networks Sling TV, AT&Ts DirecTV Now, Hulus live TV service, Netflix, or YouTube TV.
Though the drop is significant, the number of "cord-remainers" stands at 196.3 million U.S. adults, down just 2.4% from last year, which means we have a long way to go before the revolution really starts to hit the wallets of cable news outlets. By 2021, eMarketer predicts the number will fall to 181.7 million, a decline of 10%, with the biggest consumers of cable in the 55+ age bracket. The trend will result in a bizarre generational split of media consumption, with a total of 81 million (mostly younger adults) adults living cable free.
Cable providers have begun bracing for the storm with streaming services. Variety profiled more:
CBS in 2014 launched All Access, while Disney has set early 2018 for the debut of a no-cable-needed ESPN OTT package (although that will exclude NFL and NBA games). In addition, five media companies A+E Networks, Viacom, Discovery, Scripps Networks Interactive and AMC Networks reportedly have joined forces to create a non-sports streaming bundle of cable programming to be priced at under $20 per month. |
Though hardly anybody watches CNN, as the ratings show, the fake news outlet still swims in buckets of cash, and that's largely because of cable subscriptions, which totals 50% of their total revenue. That means that protest boycotts of CNN, or any other leftist network for that matter, do absolutely nothing so long as you keep paying the cable subscription fees.
It might be time to join that 81 million ...