The number of households who cut their cable or satellite television packages doubled in 2018 to nearly three million, despite the so-called experts predicting the exact opposite.
Breitbart News was the first to cover this phenomenon as a game changer going back more than six years. We are also the outlet that told you the experts were blowing smoke, wishcasting, attempting to stabilize their stock prices with the absurd prediction that cord cutting had already peaked and would begin to taper off.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope — sorry, Welfare Queen Cable Networks, cord cutting is real and it’s fabulous.
A quick explainer…
What is cord cutting?
Cord cutting is shorthand for what happens when someone cancels their cable or satellite (DirecTV) pay television package.
Why do people cut the cord?
Cost is a huge factor. The average monthly cable bill is currently somewhere around $100 a month. Streaming options like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu are much cheaper. Also, with a Roku player, you have access to a ton of free movies and TV series. These titles are usually older, and while they do contain a few commercial interruptions, it is nothing close to the 20 minutes of ads per hour you are assaulted with on cable TV.
What’s more, a lot of people are going back to the roof antenna. You would be shocked at how many free channels are available to you over the airwaves.
What do people do for TV after they cut the cord?
There are plenty of TV options after you dump your obnoxiously priced cable or satellite TV package. See above.
Why is cutting the cord good for America?
Cable TV is artificially propping up a slew of far-left TV networks that could not survive without it, which is why I call them Welfare Queen Cable Networks. CNN is an excellent example. If CNN had to survive on advertising alone, because of its laughably low ratings, the propaganda network would either collapse entirely or be forced to operate at a much reduced level. The same is true of MSNBC, MTV, and a host of others.
The more people who cancel their cable or satellite packages, the less money those left-wing networks make.
For example, cord cutting has already brutalized far-left ESPN. Cord cutting is why Keith Olbermann lost his job.
What does the number of cable subscribers have to do with how much money CNN makes?
The primary reason your cable bill is so high is due to what are called carriage fees.
Carriage fees are another form of corporate welfare that ensure a cable network receives a certain dollar amount every month based on how many households purchased cable packages that include that specific network.
The following are not perfect numbers, but they are close: CNN gets $1 per month per subscriber; ESPN gets $6; MSNBC .75 cents; MTV .50 cents, etc.
Do you mean these left-wing networks make money whether or not I watch them?
Exactly. Carriage fees have nothing to do with merit — this is corporate welfare.
This is also why your cable company will not let you choose which channels you want to subscribe to, why you are forced into purchasing a “package.” Meaning, if you want Turner Classic Movies, you have to accept CNN, which means CNN is part of your package, which means CNN earns that dollar a month.
Wait, who pays for that carriage fee/welfare?
You do, dummy, whether or not you watch CNN, if it is part of your cable package, you are subsidizing a network that hates you to the tune of about $12 year. Now multiply that by the 80 million or so households that have CNN in their homes and you will start to get the idea why cord cutting is good for America.
Cable and satellite TV is the one-legged stool holding up left-wing Hollywood and the much of the news media.
Every cutting of the cord costs CNN $12 a year. Multiply that times three million cord cutters last year and 10 million over the last ten or so years, and you see why this matters.
Cutting the cord is an effective way to starve the CNNs of the world, an existential threat, and if you love America you will stop reading this and cut the cord now.
But aren’t people just moving to streaming TV packages that subsidize hate networks like CNN?
Well, that is the best news in this latest cord cutting report, because the answer is mostly no.
My fear was that people would fall for that, would be suckered into cutting the cord while not really cutting the cord because streaming packages like Sling and DirecTV Now offer the same channels you find on cable TV.
According to this study, though, while 2.9 million cut the cord, there were only 641,000 new subscribers to these streaming cable packages, which is a net loss of 2.25 million for the welfare queens.
In even better news, the number of people subscribing to Sling and like collapsed. In 2017, those streaming cable packages earned 1.5 million new customers; this year it’s 641,000, even as cord cutting accelerates. This is wonderful news.
Do you live the change you want? Did you cut the cord?
I cut the cord almost exactly three years ago and saving money is not even the best part. Not having all that bilge pumped into my house is a wonderful thing.
What do you do instead?
I subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime, which is plenty. I also read a lot and watch a lot of DVDs.
Will You subscribe to these upcoming streaming services like Disney, ESPN, and Warner Bros?
Heavens no. As is I’ll never be able to watch everything I want to on Amazon and Netflix, and why would I want to return to a $100 a month TV bill through a bunch of streaming services.
Won’t cutting the cord hurt Fox News?
I certainly hope so.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.