In the most recent quarter of 2024, Charter Communications, one of America’s largest cable television providers, lost about 400,000 subscribers.
Far Left The Hollywood Reporter He said this on Friday.
The company, led by CEO Chris Winfree, said it lost 393,000 residential pay-TV subscribers in the most recent quarter, compared with 189,000 customers in the same period a year ago. Second-quarter video revenue was $3.9 billion, down 7.7% from the same period a year ago. Charter ended its most recent fiscal period with 13.3 million video subscribers, down 9.5% from the same period a year ago.
Charter and Comcast, which have similarly lost video customers as consumers shifted to streaming platforms, have rolled out their Xumo streaming platform to hold on to TV content subscribers. Video customers are making choices “based on affordability,” Winfrey said on a morning conference call with analysts.
Charter’s total video subscriber count has fallen to 13.3 million. As of September 2018, Charter 16.1 millionChurn is accelerating as people become more comfortable with streaming. Why pay for internet and cable TV when you can get the same quality of free cable TV through services like Tubi, FreeVee, Roku TV, and Pluto? There’s an incredible amount of free streaming TV out there.
In 2013, 100 million 500 million The number of households subscribing to cable television fell to 78.2 million in 2020. Today, that number is 72 million and, 57 million By 2026.
This is why entertainment stocks are plummeting.
In 2014, Warner Bros. stock price was about $75Today it’s worth $7.15.
Just a few years ago, Disney Grooming Syndicate stock was $150Today, it’s worth $90.
In 2014, Paramount’s stock price $19.5Today it’s worth $5.
In 2021, NBC/Universal (Comcast) stock was close to $60. It’s now at $39.
Since 2020, Hollywood has been facing two realities: 1) the number of households canceling cable and satellite television (CSTV) subscriptions is growing at a seemingly endless rate, and 2) streaming will never make up for that revenue.
CSTV was affirmative action against Hollywood. 100 million households were sending tens of billions of dollars to Hollywood every month through their cable bills for channels they never watched. Through their cable bills, Americans were subsidizing a ton of media that no one watches (CNN, MTV, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, etc.). That’s why CSTV costs so much a month. That’s why you’re forced to buy a huge package full of a ton of channels you never watch.
Netflix’s phenomenal success told Hollywood that this was the new paradise. Investors demanded that studios copy Netflix and pour hundreds of billions of dollars into streaming programming. The problem is that streaming is very different from cable TV. People can’t subscribe to cable TV unless they actually want your content. Gone are the days of cable TV, where Hollywood got paid for content no one watches. After all, these streaming services (except Netflix) don’t have enough subscribers to make a profit.
As streaming subscriber numbers plateau and 2-3 million people cancel CSTV each year, Hollywood’s situation is only going to get worse. The real growth has and will continue to come from free streaming services like these and Pluto.
Hollywood is truly in a bind and the only solution is to provide entertainment that the public wants to watch. Woke, gay, DEI, partisan crap doesn’t sell.
John Nolte’s first and last novel Borrowed time, Winning 5-Star Rave Reviews Submissions from our everyday readers. You can read excerpts here here And a detailed review here. Also available in hard cover and Kindle and Audiobooks.
