from the apathy-isn’t-a-business-model dept
For some time there, everyone’s least favourite cable firm, Comcast, was weathering the twine slicing revolution pretty nicely. The corporate’s losses on the cable TV aspect might merely be recouped over on its broadband aspect, the place a monopoly protected it from having to really, , strive.
Issues have shifted. Final yr, Comcast saw a record 11 percent of its customer base cancel their Comcast cable service in favor of streaming video, over the air broadcasts, or free companies like TikTok. And the corporate misplaced misplaced 440,000 conventional video prospects within the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, a giant bump over the 227,000 prospects it misplaced within the final three months of 2021.
General, Web disruption hasn’t been sort to the cable large, and it seems to solely be getting worse:
Worse, the two.034 million pay TV prospects misplaced by Comcast in 2022 was a big uptick over the 1.67 million misplaced in 2021. General, Comcast’s pay TV base eroded by an enormous 11.2% final yr, and it now serves solely round 16.1 million subscribers. Simply three years in the past, that determine stood at almost 20 million prospects.
The corporate has had some higher success with its personal streaming video service, Peacock, including 5 million new prospects in a single quarter. The issue: these customers pay considerably much less cash than the normal cable prospects they’re dropping, and Peacock itself has been a web loss to date:
Peacock’s quarterly losses grew to $978 million from Oct. 1 – Dec. 31. In Q3, Peacock reported losses of $614 million. For all of 2022, Comcast and NBCU misplaced round $3 billion — the “peak”, they declare — constructing Peacock.
Comcast nonetheless has its broadband monopoly to guard itself from pesky innovation. However even that’s going through some new challenges. Mounted 5G wi-fi suppliers are beginning to nibble away at the company’s frustrated subscriber base, and cooperatives, utilities, and municipalities — buoyed by an historic infusion of broadband subsidies — are additionally gaining steam.
At this fee Comcast could, sometime within the not so distant future, be required to really strive.
Filed Beneath: 5g, broadband, cable tv, cord cutting, monopoly, streaming tv, tv, video
Firms: comcast
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