Cord cutting is a touchy subject with cable TV companies, with many even claiming it doesn’t exist. However, it has emerged that over 500,000 subscribers were lost during the 3rd quarter of 2010. And to rub salt into the wounds, those customers are heading to cheaper internet tv services such as Hulu and Netflix.
The study conducted by GigaOM shows that cable giants Comcast and Time Warner took big hits, showing losses of 275,000 and 155,000 subscriber losses.
The losses are to be expected though say GigaOM, as cash strapped customers cannot be expected to fork out up to $150 per month with rises every year. In fact the cable companies are not operating a sustainable business model at this time.
Of course the internet tv threat is well known and the cable companies are trying to muscle in to the internet TV market by acquisitions of TV content providers and wireless internet access.
Online streaming sites such as Hulu let viewers watch TV shows on pc, console, set-top box or mobile sevice. For a smaller (than cable) price, services such as Netflix allow premium content to be streamed to viewers screens.
Add into the mix the newly revamped Apple TV and the new Google TV platform and you can see why cable companies are worried about cord cutting. Of course, some people dont like change and some find computers complicated. The big worry for the traditional pay tv suppliers, is that when we get used to the new technology. The trickle will become a torrent.