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Cable TV providers ruined cable—now they’re coming for streaming

Apple TV Plus, cable, Comcast, netflix, peacock, streaming, Tech / /

Cable 2.0 —

Comcast wants to tie its cable/Internet to your streaming subscriptions.

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Cable TV providers ruined cable—now they’re coming for streaming

In an ironic twist, cable TV and Internet provider Comcast has announced that it, too, will sell a bundle of video-streaming services for a discounted price. The announcement comes as Comcast has been rapidly losing cable TV subscribers to streaming services and seeks to bring the same type of bundling that originally drew people away from cable to streaming.

Starting on an unspecified date this month, the bundle, called Streamsaver, will offer Peacock, which Comcast owns, Apple TV+, and Netflix to people who subscribe to Comcast’s cable TV and/or broadband. Comcast already offers Netflix or Apple TV+ as add-ons to its cable TV, but Streamsaver expands Comcast’s streaming-related bundling efforts.

Comcast didn’t say how much the streaming bundle would cost, but CEO Brian Roberts said that it will “come at a vastly reduced price to anything in the market today” when announcing the bundle on Tuesday at MoffettNathanson’s 2024 Media, Internet and Communications Conference in New York, per Variety. If we factor in Peacock’s upcoming price hike, subscribing to Apple TV+, Netflix, and Peacock separately would cost $39.47 per month without ads, or $24.97/month with ads.

According to Roberts, Comcast is hoping that the upcoming package will help Comcast “add value to consumers” and “take some of the dollars out of” other streaming businesses.

For subscribers, the more immediate effect is the continuing and rapid blurring of the lines between cable and streaming services. And Comcast knows that.

As Roberts notes: “We’ve been bundling video successfully and creatively for 60 years, and so this is the latest iteration of that.”

Comcast is hemorrhaging subscribers

Last month, Comcast said it lost 487,000 cable TV subscribers in Q1 2024. It ended the quarter with 13,600,000 subscribers, compared to 14,106,000 at the end of 2023 and 16,142,000 at the end of 2022.

Comcast’s broadband subscriber base also decreased from 32,253,000 at the end of 2023 to 32,188,000.

Peacock, Comcast’s flagship streaming service, hasn’t made any money since launching in 2020 and lost $2.7 billion in 2023. However, in April, Comcast said that Peacock’s Q1 losses lessened from $704 million in Q1 2023 to $639 million in Q1 2024.

It’s worth noting that in January, Comcast raised prices for its cable and Internet services by 3 percent, blaming the price hikes on broadband investments and an increase in programming costs.

Déjà vu

One of the common reasons people abandoned cable TV were bundled packages that forced people to pay for services, like phone or Internet, or channels that they didn’t want. Now, Comcast is looking to save its shrinking subscriber base by bundling its cable TV or Internet service with some of its biggest competitors. Like streaming services, Comcast is hoping that bundling its products will deter people from canceling their subscriptions since they’re tied to each other.

Subscriber churn is also a problem in the streaming industry. Antenna, a subscription analyst company, estimates that around 25 percent of video-streaming subscribers in the US have canceled at least three such subscriptions in the last two years. These high-churn subscribers represent around 40 percent of new subscriptions and cancellations last year, Antenna told The New York Times in April.

But Comcast’s announcement hints at déjà vu as Comcast blatantly seeks to re-create the cable bundle or triple-play package using the very streaming services that are eating away at Comcast’s cable business. Ironically, Comcast is seeking to bandage a declining business by feeding some of the biggest contributors to that decline, using the same tactics that drove many customers away in the first place.

We’re expected to hear a lot more about bundled services. Last month, we learned that a Disney+, Hulu, and Max bundle would be released this summer, for example. And there’s already a lengthy list of streaming bundle packages available from third parties like Verizon and T-Mobile.

But for people who left cable to avoid overloaded bundled packages and to get away from companies like Comcast, which group cable TV or Internet with streaming services that often raise prices, limit show and movie availability and features, and increasingly focus on ads, it just isn’t worth the monthly savings.

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The lines between streaming and cable continue to blur

ads, cable, Disney, Disney Plus, netflix, streaming, Tech / /

Here we go again —

Disney+ to offer 24/7 channels to play Star Wars content, commercials.

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O.B., aka Ouroboros, in Marvel's <em>Loki</em> show, which streams on Disney+.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ARC-201-10072_R-1200×800-5b2df79-800×533.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / O.B., aka Ouroboros, in Marvel’s Loki show, which streams on Disney+.

Despite promises of new and improved TV and movie viewing experiences, streaming services remain focused on growing revenue and app usage. As a result of that focus, streaming companies are mimicking the industry they sought to replace—cable.

On Monday, The Information reported that Disney plans to add “a series” of channels to the Disney+ app. Those channels would still be streamed and require a Disney+ subscription to access. But they would work very much like traditional TV channels, featuring set programming that runs 24/7 with commercials. Disney hasn’t commented on the report.

Disney is exploring adding channels to Disney+ with “programming in specific genres, including either Star Wars or Marvel-branded shows,” The Information said, citing anonymous “people involved in the planning.” It’s unknown when the Disney+ channels are expected to launch.

The report comes as streaming services continue trying to find ways to capitalize off cable companies’ customer base. NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service already offers subscribers over 50 always-on live channels. Hulu and Paramount+ offer live TV with cable channels. Streaming platforms are also eager to license content normally delegated to traditional TV channels, including old shows like Suits, the 2023 streaming record-setter, and live sporting events like WWE Raw.

Channel surfing 2.0

If you’ve followed the streaming industry lately, you won’t be surprised to hear that ad dollars are reportedly behind the push for live channels. Disney+, like many streaming services, aims to be profitable by the end of Disney’s 2024 fiscal year and extract as much revenue from each subscriber as possible (including by using tactics like password crackdowns) to fuel profits.

The news follows similar moves by Disney, including adding Hulu to the Disney+ app, as well as plans to add ESPN to Disney+, too, according to The Information. Disney is also attempting to launch a joint sports-streaming app with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). It’s not hard to imagine Disney one day (assuming the app ever debuts) making the sports app’s content accessible through Disney+.

“The idea is to make Disney+ a service that has something for everyone, anytime,” The Information reported.

That sounds an awful lot like cable, which spent years growing customers’ monthly bills by adding more channels and bundles aimed at specific interests, like children’s entertainment, sports, and lifestyle. The ability to hop from on-demand Disney kids’ movies to on-demand sitcoms on Hulu to live programming centered on (the seemingly endless piles of) Marvel and Star Wars content feels a lot like channel surfing. It wasn’t too long ago when channel surfing was viewed as a time-suck.

Netflix has also reportedly considered ways to unite other streaming platforms with Netflix in order to extend the amount of time spent on Netflix. In late 2022, Netflix “explored creating a store within its app for users to subscribe to and watch other streaming services, all without leaving the Netflix app,” The Information said, citing an unnamed person “who was involved in those exploratory discussions.” Netflix reportedly decided not to move ahead with the plans for now but still could. It hasn’t commented on The Information’s report.

As we saw with Netflix’s password crackdown and streaming’s shift to ads, streaming companies tend to copy each other’s strategies for revenue growth. And live channels could be something more streaming companies get involved in, as WBD and Amazon, as examples, already have (albeit separate from their flagship, on-demand streaming apps, which differs from what Disney+’s live channel reportedly will reportedly be like).

Disney, notably, is no stranger to the business of online live channels, having 21 similar offerings within the ABC.com app, including a channel for ABC News and another for General Hospital.

Subscription-based streaming services may even have an easier time competing for ad dollars than free, ad-supported TV (FAST) streaming channels, such as those on Tubi and Pluto TV. Susan Schiekofer, chief digital investment officer for GroupM, the top US ad-buying company, told The Information that advertisers might feel more comfortable allotting dollars to ad-supported channels that are tied to users who have already spent money on a subscription.

Streaming services initially were a way to get only the content you wanted on demand and commercial-free. But the report about Disney+ and Netflix are just two examples of growing interest in reinvigorating the strategies of linear TV. Instead of jumping from network to network within cable, there’s interest in getting people to jump from one streaming service to another within one platform—with plenty of commercials along the way.

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After pushing cloud storage, TV provider to auto-delete 61-day-old DVR recordings

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“Wish I knew this before” —

Customers originally had 365 days to enjoy the recordings.

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hand holding tv remote in front of TV with static

Canadian telecom Bell Canada has been pushing its cloud-based DVR service to its Fibe TV subscribers for years. While it has given customers advantages, like the ability to view their recordings from more devices, such as phones, compared to using local DVR storage, users don’t have as much control over the recordings as they thought they had.

On May 1, Fibe TV will automatically delete recordings stored on its Cloud PVR (personal video recorder) offering once the recordings hit 61 days of age, as confirmed by Canadian online newspaper Daily Hive. Currently, customers maintain access to recordings stored via Cloud PVR for 365 days.

Fibe TV apparently started alerting customers of the upcoming change this month.

A Bell Canada spokesperson, Jacqueline Michelis, minimized the idea of disruption to customers, telling Daily Hive: “The viewing of nearly all recordings takes place within 60 days, so there is minimal impact to customers.” Michelis didn’t provide more details on how Bell Canada arrived at this conclusion.

An X user (formerly Twitter) user going by SimonDingleyTV shared what he said was a notice he received from Fibe TV about the policy change. He claimed that a company representative told him that the reason for the change was to “save space.”

Bell updated its website to acknowledge the time limit and noted that Cloud PVR also has a limit of up to 320 hours of recordings. If users surpass that limit, the oldest recordings will start getting deleted.

“Absolutely ridiculous”

Customers have turned to Bell Canada’s online support forum to share their discontent with the changes, with some saying that they don’t align with the services they expected to receive when signing up for Fibe TV. Thankfully, Bell Canada won’t be able to delete recordings stored on DVR hardware inside customers’ homes.

Other complaints are coming from users whose recordings are being deleted even when they haven’t come close to maxing out their cloud storage or if their recordings aren’t available on demand.

A user going by camisotro on Bell Canada’s online support forum called the announcement “absolutely ridiculous” and condemned what they perceived to be years of telecoms pushing back against users’ ability to record content:

… Bell eliminated the option for any device that actually records TV locally, forcing customers onto an inferior TV box with ‘Cloud PVR.’ Now they are nerfing it to a nearly useless 60 days of recording. This is not the service I signed up for on contract, and yet I am still continuing to pay increasing prices.

Like rivals, Bell pushed customers toward cloud-based DVR, with its website stating, “Fibe TV has evolved to a cloud-based storage system for all your recordings.”

However, some users may not have realized the trade-offs.

“Wish I knew this before I traded PVRs to change to cloud storage! No one told us that !!!,” a forum user known as Crazy aunt said.

Another user, Thornquills, called the news a “deal-breaker” because they’re “paying $10.00/month for cloud storage,” and “2 months is too restrictive, in my opinion.”

Meanwhile, Bell Canada rival Rogers Ignite confirmed to The Canadian Press that it will continue allowing its customers to keep DVR recordings stored in the cloud for one year, as its cloud PVR offering exists to “help manage storage capacity.”

Fibe TV’s policy change comes about two months after Bell Canada announced that it was laying off 4,800 workers and selling 45 of its 103 radio stations.

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