# Pay-TV Companies Are in Crisis Mode



## mjwagner (Oct 8, 2005)

I posted some time ago that the trickle would quickly turn into a flood. Honestly, I didn't expect it to happen this fast. I had my D account on hold for 6 months while I tested out PSVue along with Netflix and HDHomerun for my viewing requirements. That combination far exceeded what I need, and nets me about $70 per month in savings. Finally cancelled D and returned my recvrs. OTT solutions won't work for everybody, but it looks like it is for more and more.

Pay-TV Companies Are in Crisis Mode


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

Glad the services work for you. I tried almost all of them at one point or another but never found one I liked well enough to cut the cord. And because of what I want to watch they didn't end up saving me money either.

I did make a change this year though. My cable provider made me an offer I couldn't refuse! Basically I have every channel they offer, including all the premiums for $80/month more than what I was paying them for internet service. It helps that I own my Tivo equipment with lifetime service, but even if I paid for annual Tivo service, it would still be cheaper than either D* or E* at the same level of service.


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## Gloria_Chavez (Aug 11, 2008)

mjwagner said:


> I posted some time ago that the trickle would quickly turn into a flood.


Yesterday, ATT warned that it will report a decline of 300k satellite subs for 3Q17, a significant decline from the 323k increase reported for 3Q16.

And I blame the sports tax. How is ESPN responding? As its carriage deals lapse, its asking for an INCREASE in the annual price hike to make up for the fewer subscribers that receive ESPN


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

ESPN, and its imitators, are the cause of all of these issues. Its delusional massive over-bids, most particularly for the niche NBA (91% of Americans do not watch it at all, which includes most sports fans), caused people to look for alternatives and the Market responded.

Take away the "sports tax" and problem solved.


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

That 390 thousand loss is a net of only 90,000. They lost 390,000 from DirecTV and U-Verse combined but gained 300,000 in the DirecTV Now platform.

Comcast's losses are attributed mostly to the Hurricanes that destroyed lines and customers houses recently.


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## mjwagner (Oct 8, 2005)

jimmie57 said:


> That 390 thousand loss is a net of only 90,000. They lost 390,000 from DirecTV and U-Verse combined but gained 300,000 in the DirecTV Now platform.
> 
> Comcast's losses are attributed mostly to the Hurricanes that destroyed lines and customers houses recently.


That is certainly the Spin they have been putting on the numbers. Maybe yes, maybe no, sounds like whistling in the graveyard to me but time will tell. I don't think any of them are going out of business anytime soon, but I do think the days of $130+ monthly bills, mostly padded by per receiver and other extra fees are coming to an end sooner than the sat or cable providers would like. You can be certain that they will continue to "milk" their existing subscriber base for as long as they can get away with it.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

I think you are still underestimating the coming price explosion streaming is starting to have. In two years people will be going nuts when they find out how much disney streaming services will cost. People who think Netflix does it all will be sad when they find out Netflix is going to be hbo at its best in five years. Then add universal to the Disney direction. And then WB. And Sony. And so on. It won’t be cheaper that way in a couple years and once their is an euqlaibriun then you’ll have a splinter of two groups. Ones who buy small packages and keep switching which one they have every few months and then others who stick to the cable style offerings. 

Losing a couple million is nothing to att right now. And they barely lost 90k. Until we see sustained losses and their subscriber base drops to 15 million this really isn’t the sky is falling situation many think it is. 

And remember any one moving from att Uverse and also Lilly from DIRECTV to DIRECTV now is probably costing them less money every month meaning they are likely making more money on people who make the switch to DIRECTV now. So that alone also makes up for some of those 90k people they lost. 

And churn has always been present. They always lose thousands of customers each month.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

There is only one winning solution to this scenario: DON'T PLAY. The only streaming service I have is through Amazon Prime. I'm on a minimal package with DirecTV, and I really would like to cancel. I hardly have time for television thanks to work.


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## Eddie501 (Nov 29, 2007)

People always talk about price as being the main driver, but no one ever mentions the elephant in the room. Basic cable sucks. I realized I was paying about $60/mo + another $20 or so in equipment fees for non-stop commercials, interrupted briefly by shows about tiny houses, little people, Kardashians, Pawn shops, etc etc. And I did this solely to get to the good stuff like HBO & locals. Now that I can get those directly I am no longer hostage to a package of crap. You literally could not pay ME to watch these channels. Yet somehow they expect people to fork over increasing piles of money for it.

I just find it odd that the industry blames streaming, costs, etc without ever considering that people maybe don't want to watch all this reality dreck and commercials. I have no problem paying about as much for my streaming bundles as I did for cable. Because it's a better experience. And unlike cable, it can be dropped on a moment's notice if it ceases to be.


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## mjwagner (Oct 8, 2005)

People are ditching cable at record speed, so of course AT&T is hiking prices

"The reality of a competitive streaming TV market is very different to the locked-in cable and pay TV markets that AT&T's used to playing in."


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Poor journalism ... that story is a "hey, look what I read on the Internet" regurgitation ... for example:
"“Due to higher costs of programming, the monthly rate for the below services will increase on January 21, 2018, and the changes will appear in billing statements starting on that date,” AT&T reportedly said in a statement."

AT&T posted that on their website (link in the appropriate thread on this forum). No need to treat it as a rumor. That sort of error casts doubt on the entire article. The alleged DirecTV NOW price increase is speculation being treated as fact. Messy.

People should EXPECT DirecTV Now to go up in price ... along with Sling TV and any other streaming provider. The rights to the content that they provide (especially traditional cable channel content) are not getting cheaper year to year. Expecting streaming costs to never rise is naive.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

It's weird how some think the industry is going to suffer. Our local cable company is Comcast/Xfinity. Our local high speed internet company is Comcast/Xfinity.

They've always had competition. But Comcast owns NBC/Universal which owns (from Wikipedia):

*Subsidiaries*

NBC Broadcasting
Peacock Productions
NBCUniversal Television Stations
NBC Owned Television Stations

NBCUniversal Television Distribution

NBC Entertainment
NBC programming
Universal Television

Universal Filmed Entertainment Group
Universal Pictures
Focus Features
Focus World
Gramercy Pictures label
High Top Releasing

Working Title Films
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Universal 1440 Entertainment
Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia (JV)

Universal Animation Studios
Amblin Partners (JV)
Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Television

DreamWorks Pictures label
DreamWorks Television (merged with Amblin Television)

Storyteller Distribution

DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation Television
DreamWorks Animation Home Entertainment (merged with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment)
DreamWorks Channel
DreamWorks Classics
Big Idea Entertainment
Bullwinkle Studios (JV)

DreamWorks New Media
AwesomenessTV (JV)
DreamWorksTV

Oriental DreamWorks (JV)

Illumination Entertainment
Illumination Mac Guff

NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan
Back Lot Music

NBC Sports Group
NBC Sports Regional Networks
Golf Channel
NBC Sports
Olympic Channel
NBCSN
SportsEngine

NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group
Syfy
Chiller (shutting down December 31, 2017)
E!
USA Network
Universal Cable Productions
Bravo
Oxygen Media
Universal Kids (formerly Sprout)
The Weather Channel (JV)
NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises
DailyCandy
Fandango


NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises
Telemundo
Universo
Telemundo Deportes

NBCUniversal News Group
NBC News
CNBC
MSNBC

NBCUniversal International Networks

*Internet Platform*
Hulu is a joint venture of NBCUniversal, Fox Entertainment Group, ABC (Disney-ABC Television Group), and Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner)

Soon the FCC and the FTC will lose their ability to effectively regulate the industry. Comcast and ATT (my phone service provider and owner of DirecTV) really do struggle.


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## namja (Jan 8, 2007)

I'm in southern California. So far, I've tried DirecTV Now (4 months: Dec 2016 to Mar 2017), YouTube TV (10 months: since Mar 2017), and Hulu (2 months: Oct 2017 to Nov 2017) for live TV.

YouTube TV is the best. By far the most reliable. Which is why I kept it. Both DirecTV Now and Hulu kept cutting off. DirecTV was a long time ago so maybe they're better now. I got Hulu mainly to watch baseball postseason, and it was unwatchable. I was with TWC for many years prior to dropping it for a streaming service. My brother dropped D* to get YouTube TV.

Biggest gripe: sometimes having to watch commercials when watching recorded shows. Some shows have no commercials while others do. They've explained to me what the logic was, but I forget.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

And that’s why I may never go full streaming. I refuse to pay for something that requires me to also watch commercials.


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## mjwagner (Oct 8, 2005)

namja said:


> I'm in southern California. So far, I've tried DirecTV Now (4 months: Dec 2016 to Mar 2017), YouTube TV (10 months: since Mar 2017), and Hulu (2 months: Oct 2017 to Nov 2017) for live TV.
> 
> YouTube TV is the best. By far the most reliable. Which is why I kept it. Both DirecTV Now and Hulu kept cutting off. DirecTV was a long time ago so maybe they're better now. I got Hulu mainly to watch baseball postseason, and it was unwatchable. I was with TWC for many years prior to dropping it for a streaming service. My brother dropped D* to get YouTube TV.
> 
> Biggest gripe: sometimes having to watch commercials when watching recorded shows. Some shows have no commercials while others do. They've explained to me what the logic was, but I forget.


Have you tried PSVue? I've been using it for about a year now. I find their cloud DVR to be excellent.


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## bharath_das (May 5, 2011)

Yes I have been using PSVue from the day when they launched and also tried all of other few times. I really like their cloud DVR. More reliable like YouTube Tv. By the way I cancelled Dish with hopper when I subscribed Vue and I am not missing anything. I have been saving $50/month more than 18/24 months.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## VaJim (Jul 27, 2006)

I've been testing SlingTV with the AirTV device / with OTA. So far it works great and I'm looking at saving $100 per month over DTV.


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## js12278 (Jan 13, 2008)

I've cut it with Directv. After 21 years we are going to give streaming and OTA a go.
Will be bringing their equipment in their box to shipping center tomorrow.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

I'm trying to show my mother how to use Plex so that we can stream media from my FreeNAS server Vaultron. Here are directions for ripping a DVD and ripping a BluRay. Right now, I'm only looking at ripping some TV shows and movies from my collection to Plex, but not my entire collection.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

Mark Holtz said:


> I'm trying to show my mother how to use Plex so that we can stream media from my FreeNAS server Vaultron. Here are directions for ripping a DVD and ripping a BluRay. Right now, I'm only looking at ripping some TV shows and movies from my collection to Plex, but not my entire collection.


I used mkv to make digital full copies of all my dvds and Blu-ray then I use infuse to stream them off my hard drive to my AppleTV. It's really nice and absolutely full Rez and original audio and no converting which downgrades picture and sound.


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## GekkoDBS (Dec 5, 2015)

inkahauts said:


> I used mkv to make digital full copies of all my dvds and Blu-ray then I use infuse to stream them off my hard drive to my AppleTV. It's really nice and absolutely full Rez and original audio and no converting which downgrades picture and sound.


I want to do this with a Nvidia shield and western digital my passport external drive, then use Kodi to play them and bookmark where I left off.

What do you use to rip them and how long does the average 2 hour blu-ray take and what is the average gb's if you leave out the extras and most of the extra audio tracks?

Thinking about getting this Asus to rip them BW-16D1X-U


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

Look into a program called mkv. Not familiar enough with if kodi plays mkv but I am guessing it does. Copies ar pretty fast, and size is whatever the disc is minus what you leave off and that can vary greatly depending on the movie. Some just have one or two tracks, others have many tracks, and multiple formats as well, including “lossless”DD or DTS formats.


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## GekkoDBS (Dec 5, 2015)

inkahauts said:


> Look into a program called mkv. Not familiar enough with if kodi plays mkv but I am guessing it does. Copies ar pretty fast, and size is whatever the disc is minus what you leave off and that can vary greatly depending on the movie. Some just have one or two tracks, others have many tracks, and multiple formats as well, including "lossless"DD or DTS formats.


Yes thank you I have that program, I'm asking about the dvd drive you use to rip them, which one?

All I want is to rip up to 50 of my favorite movies so I might buy a 4tb my passport wd external 3.0 drive.


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## ericknolls (Aug 18, 2013)

phrelin said:


> It's weird how some think the industry is going to suffer. Our local cable company is Comcast/Xfinity. Our local high speed internet company is Comcast/Xfinity.
> 
> They've always had competition. But Comcast owns NBC/Universal which owns (from Wikipedia):
> 
> ...


I know - Right!

Sent from my XT1609 using Tapatalk


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## ericknolls (Aug 18, 2013)

phrelin said:


> It's weird how some think the industry is going to suffer. Our local cable company is Comcast/Xfinity. Our local high speed internet company is Comcast/Xfinity.
> 
> They've always had competition. But Comcast owns NBC/Universal which owns (from Wikipedia):
> 
> ...


The industry is not going to suffer knowing what some of these players own. I certainly did not know Comcast owned all of that... No wonder these so called programming costs are so high. We are probably paying for all of those companies and they are reaping the profits. Go figure!

Sent from my XT1609 using Tapatalk


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

GordonGekko said:


> Yes thank you I have that program, I'm asking about the dvd drive you use to rip them, which one?
> 
> All I want is to rip up to 50 of my favorite movies so I might buy a 4tb my passport wd external 3.0 drive.


If you plan on ripping BluRays and DVDs, you need a BluRay drive. An internal BluRay drive will run you about $50.


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## GekkoDBS (Dec 5, 2015)

Mark Holtz said:


> If you plan on ripping BluRays and DVDs, you need a BluRay drive. An internal BluRay drive will run you about $50.


I was considering buying this one :

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VP89X1/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I6X30NSI2N4AS&colid=1TG4Q79JNC7C4&psc=0

Do you use an external blu-ray drive?


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

I use an internal drive.


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## mjwagner (Oct 8, 2005)

"Companies like Amazon and Netflix are delivering game-changing convenience at incredibly efficient prices," Mr. Morris said.

Cable TV's Cord-Cutting Woes Grow, Highlighting Divergence With Netflix


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## bills976 (Jun 30, 2002)

We're dumping DirecTV for DirecTV Now. Their beta is streaming at 1080p and the picture quality on our LG OLED via the 4K Apple TV is significantly better than the DBS stream. It's $40/mo less than what we pay for the select package.

Our address qualifies on their website for Sunday Ticket streaming, so we will pick the NFL up that way.

As far as pricing goes, I have no issue hopping from one provider to another based on packages provided. All we really watch are A&E, AMC, Food Network, TLC, and the major four networks. I'll only ever watch ESPN if the Bills are playing, which seems like once every other season. When that happens, I'll up my package to include ESPN for a month and then be done with it.

I'm intrigued by T-Mobile's future offering since we are wireless customers of theirs, and I would expect some kind of bundle/discount.


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