It wasn’t too long ago when there were only a handful of TV channels and most of those wouldn’t even broadcast all day. Back in the “good ol’ days”, people didn’t have much in the way of choice when it came to watching television. You would sign up to whichever cable provider was in your area and pay whatever price they asked of you for spotty service and limited channel options.
This business model worked for cable providers because their customers had little if any choice in the matter. However, nothing lasts forever and when new options like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, and many others started sprouting up, people realized the big TV providers had been scalping them for years. These TV providers have proven too big and cumbersome to make sweeping changes and, as a result, they are steadily going the way of the dinosaurs.
Cable customers are cutting the cord at an accelerating rate over the past few years with a total 5.5 million subscribers terminating their contracts with TV providers last year alone—a 70% increase from 2018’s 3.2 million cord-cutters. Simultaneously, more households are becoming “cord nevers” (people who have never subscribed to TV providers and use on-demand services or the internet instead) than ever before.
We got to this place today where cable customers are leaving their providers in droves due to a large number of reasons that have made alternative TV options enticing and practical. Let’s look at two of the biggest factors that make cord-cutting viable and, more importantly, appealing to so many people.
Reason 1: The Internet
Sure, the Internet has been around for quite some time at this point, but it’s only recently that high-speed internet connections were made available and reasonably affordable to such a huge number of people. Modern-day internet is many orders of magnitude faster than yesteryear’s dial-up.
Fiber optic is becoming more common by the day with internet providers using this new technology to provide gigabytes per second connection speeds. Dial-up, on the other hand, caps out at a maximum theoretical speed of 56 kbps. That means modern internet speeds are roughly 18,000 times faster than dial-up. Soak in that number for a second while I catch my breath.
In other words, a gigabit internet connection can download a feature-length film with a file size of 800 MB in less than 10 seconds while it would take a dial-up connection roughly 9 DAYS to download the same file. You would have a hard time finding people willing to wait 9 days for a Netflix movie to load, but modern high-speed internet allows users to instantly access and stream content with virtually zero delay.
Reason 2: Cha-Ching
TV provider bills are notoriously expensive thanks to their use of fairly skeevy business practices. It’s amazing how you can sign up for a cable TV provider at the advertised $50/month and end up paying easily over $150 after additional fees are tacked on and the introductory rates come to an end.
More people are realizing every day that they can enjoy most if not all of the same content they love to watch through their TV providers on cheaper alternative options. It’s not hard to see why someone would want to switch from paying $150+ each month for TV service to a selection of services they handpicked that costs them less than the introductory prices offered by the cable companies.
The writing is on the wall for cable companies, but TV production companies are actually in a better place than ever thanks to new cable alternatives. With new content continuously popping up on Netflix and Hulu, just to name a couple, audiences have a wide breadth of entertainment choices.
How You Can Take Advantage of Cord Cutting
Consumers are rapidly shifting away from the prehistoric business models of TV providers and taking back control of their entertainment options and wallets. With big cable TV spiraling the drain, it might seem like an awful time to invest in a TV production company. However, the end of cable TV does not mean the demand for quality TV content has come to an end as well.
Luckily, there are options for content creators and production companies that don’t involve the monolithic cable companies of yesteryear. Believe it or not, you can start your own Internet TV network and avoid expensive cable providers by going over-the-top (OTT). Launch your own Netflix-style service or get your channel on smart TVs, Roku, mobile devices, Apple TV, and more services across the globe.
See for yourself how it works by scheduling a live demo. We work hard to enable great video content creators like yourself to pocket the money your hard work deserves. Get in touch with us today to learn more.