You are viewing the archive: “cord cutting”

Liberty Media’s John Malone Calls Pay TV Sports Prices “Unsustainable”: Video

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Friday April 12, 2013 @ 10:01am PDTTags: cord cutting, John Malone, Liberty Media, Netflix, Sports

The former King of Cable — who recently agreed to buy more than 27% of Charter Communications – has a bracing warning for companies such as Disney and News Corp that hope to keep raising prices for their sports programming. “You have an unsustainable model,” he told CNBC’s David Faber in an interview. About 80% of viewers would not even pay the wholesale cost for sports if given a choice, he says. And pay TV providers may offer that, perhaps by teaming up with Netflix. “This stuff is getting too expensive for too many households.”

Comments (6)

Growing Numbers Of Pay TV Subscribers Say They’ll Cut The Cord, But Don’t: Survey

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday March 7, 2013 @ 1:09pm PSTTags: cord cutting

Pay TV subscribers cutting the cordThis is a familiar dilemma for pay TV providers: Lots of subscribers who threaten to cancel the service are full of it. The phenomenon shows up clearly in the results of Morgan Stanley’s … Read More »

Comments 28

Jeff Bewkes Says Pay TV Providers Have No Reason To Fear Cord Cutting

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday March 4, 2013 @ 9:46am PSTTags: Big Deals TV, cord cutting, Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner

Don’t tell the Time Warner CEO that cable and satellite subscribers are fed up with rising prices, and tempted to replace them with some combination of free TV and Web services such as Netflix. Pay TV is “getting to be a better deal for consumers and a better deal in the opinion of consumers,” Jeff Bewkes told investors at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom conference. “Even in this recession, you don’t have cord cutting.” What’s more, TV viewing is up at a time when “you have increases in the quality and programming budgets of all these networks.” When companies including Time Warner Cable and Dish Network offer low priced packages with relatively few channels “nobody buys them.” And TV Everywhere will make consumers more attached to pay TV. “It’s all going on demand, on every Internet device you have for free because you have a subscription.” What if he’s wrong, and consumers want something cheaper? Time Warner will still be fine, Bewkes says. “We all know that the reason [prices are] up is the sports fee, it’s not anything else. Half of citizens don’t want that.” But 90% of his company’s affiliate fees come from four networks including TNT and TBS that are built around entertainment. If consumers want bundles without sports then “we’ll be in their bundles.” And low priced offerings would lower the threshold for subscribers to also subscribe to HBO. “That would be great for HBO,” Bewkes says. Read More »

Comments 24

Pay TV Cord Cutting Will Be “Minimal” Over Next Five Years: Report

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday February 20, 2013 @ 11:58am PSTTags: cord cutting, Pay TV Channels, PwC

PwC says that television execs have a little time to relax before their lucrative business models implode. The consulting firm reached its conclusion after sponsoring a recent debate between the Marketing Association of the Columbia Business School and the … Read More »

Comments (17)