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A day after DirecTV parent AT&T said it would lose subscribers because people are ditching their satellite and cable television services — a phenomenon known as cord-cutting — shares of companies heavily invested in the TV industry tumbled.
Shares of AT&T, the culprit in Thursday's sell-off, dropped 6 percent, dragging shares of its presumed merger partner, Time Warner, down 2 percent in the process.
AT&T said in a regulatory filing that in the recently ended quarter it would report gaining 300,000 subscribers to its over-the-top digital service while losing 390,000 traditional TV subscribers, for a net loss of 90,000 subs.
While it cited several causes — including hurricanes and changing its credit standards for new customers — it was this line in the filing that Wall Street keyed on: "The video net losses were driven by heightened competition in traditional pay TV markets and OTT services ..."
Bet somebody at AT&T got fired today...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:07PM
Streaming isn't killing cable, digital TV and the insane prices are. In 1985 cable made sense--no snow or ghosts, and half a dozen more channels, at a reasonable price. With digital I have twelve to eighteen channels depending on the weather, all crystal clear. Plus, the quality of cable has dropped terribly. Instead of history, the history channel has "Ice Road Truckers". The discovery channel used to be science, I saw it in a bar the other day, a stupid reality show called "naked and afraid" was playing. It's all lowbrow garbage now.
If I want to watch something that's only on cable (not often, maybe a baseball game) I can walk down the street to a bar.
Cable TV is obsolete. Haven't needed or had it for over a decade. My cable only goes to the modem/router.
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