Cord Cutters Unit

[Bammer]

I totally thought that when our kids were born, we'd bounce our Comcast subscription. So far (3 weeks) we have watched more TV than I ever could have imagined. I guess it will be a little while, like until the kids can play board games or do homework, until we won't have time to watch TV anymore?

[Sgt. Crackpot]

Once your kids are in a good routine, and going to sleep by 7, you'll get some of your own life back.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[bodysnatcher]

Fuck yeah DramaFever

[LetMeSleep]

Once your kids are in a good routine, and going to sleep by 7, you'll get some of your own life back.

And then just go to sleep early anyway.

TV still in the garage and I only miss it for sport.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Just raise your kids on the tv shows that you watch normally. Problem solved.

[E.H. Ruddock]

I keep reading the title of this thread as "Cord Cutters Unite"

[Strat]

I keep reading the title of this thread as "Cord Cutters Unite"

Well, thats what I wanted it to read.

[bodysnatcher]

lulz ..

http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-cor ... es-2015-12

I mean, they're still making a ridiculous amount of money

[Sgt. Crackpot]

lulz ..

http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-cor ... es-2015-12

I mean, they're still making a ridiculous amount of money

This thread has been trending quite high in our Google click throughs. Seems it's helped a large sum of non rm users.

[Norah]

lulz ..

http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-cor ... es-2015-12

I mean, they're still making a ridiculous amount of money

This thread has been trending quite high in our Google click throughs. Seems it's helped a large sum of non rm users.

God damn free loaders can't even register and contribute to the community.

[Strat]

Fuck this guy. My internet shouldnt go out twice a month and have to get a technician out each time to fix it.

Everybody hates Comcast. The cable giant consistently ranks last or near last among all companies on consumer satisfaction surveys. Hurling insults at Comcast — its prices, its speeds, its customer service — has risen nearly to the level of a national pastime.

But what if there's nothing the company can do to change its customers' minds? What if most of what people hate about Comcast has its roots in the structure of America's cable market?

That's what the company's CEO, Brian Roberts, suggested last weekend when asked about the company's poor record in an interview with Business Insider founder Henry Blodget.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says the company is a victim of its licensing fees

Roberts argues that people might hate Comcast, but they hate other cable companies too:

We're with all the other cable companies, within spitting distance of each other. As a group, that is what the results show.

Like... "Well, your people didn’t show up on time" and therefore let’s fix that and will that actually change the score and suddenly we’re the best company in America? Google’s free. Facebook is free. We charge, and we collect for every piece of content rights. Every movie star. Every athlete. Every possible piece of content we pay.

We’re up to well in excess of $13 [billion] to $14 billion a year at this one company to procure that content on behalf of the consumer, and it’s grown on average as an industry about 8% to 12% a year compounded for a decade. If you drop a channel, you’re incredibly unpopular, and if you pass along a rate increase, you’re incredibly unpopular.

The problem isn’t Comcast’s service, Roberts is saying; it’s that people have to pay for it. Comcast operates by striking deals with content creators and publishers — ABC, CBS, FOX, ESPN, HBO, and the rest — for the right to broadcast their shows, movies, football, baseball, and basketball games. And as Roberts said, it doesn’t come cheap.

And there’s not much the company, or other cable companies, can do about that, in Roberts's view, because content companies have too much leverage.

Licensing fees may be expensive, but Comcast can afford them

One problem with Robert’s argument is that Comcast makes money too — a lot of it.

In 2014, it brought in nearly $69 billion in revenue, with $14.9 billion of that being operating income, a.k.a. profits.

So, yes, Comcast has to charge its customers, but it could charge them less if it wanted to. It could also invest more heavily in more and better-trained customer service workers. It could boost those data caps that customers are always complaining about.

Customers don’t hate every service they pay for


Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
To be fair, elsewhere in the interview Roberts described some of the company’s plans to improve its customer service, including an Uber-like tracking system for Comcast’s technicians.

But he seems to believe that it may just never be enough. No matter how hard Comcast tries to make its customers happy, they still wind up disgruntled. Customers just can’t stand paying for things, and the only way Comcast could really earn their love is by giving away its product, as Google and Facebook do.

The problem with this argument is that most companies do charge for their products, and few if any are as hated as Comcast. Indeed, the cable TV industry’s upstart rivals — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime — charge their customers as well.

And customers don't hate Netflix the way they hate Comcast. In 2014, Comcast scored a 54 out of 100 on the American Customer Satisfaction survey — down from 64 in 2001. On the same survey, Netflix came in at 81. In eight years of measurement, it's never dropped below a 74.

One reason for this: Online streaming services charge a lot less. Netflix’s basic service costs $7.99 a month, as does Hulu’s. Comcast’s "digital starter" TV package, which doesn’t include premium channels like HBO, costs $49.99.

On the other hand, some companies charge a premium while still earning high marks, because their products are great. For instance, iPhones are way more expensive than a lot of Android-based smartphones, yet they’ve earned fanatical customer loyalty.

So maybe Comcast can’t please its customers. Maybe it’s doomed to its abysmal Yelp reviews and a rock-bottom reputation. But it could probably try a bit harder too. Who knows?

[E.H. Ruddock]

Unite!

[dpupenya]

The Super Bowl is streaming free on the CBS Sports app. It was available on my FireTV and Roku.....

[Norah]

It's also streaming free through an antenna.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

It's also streaming free through an antenna.

welcome back, chud

[tommymtcom]

Thank god, I would hate to miss all those commercials.

[Norah]

It's also streaming free through an antenna.

welcome back, chud

I never left.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

It's also streaming free through an antenna.

welcome back, chud

I never left.

yes you did

[Norah]

It's also streaming free through an antenna.

welcome back, chud

I never left.

yes you did

when?