Well, well, well, we are now learning that most of major providers of pay television, including cable, satellite, and phone companies, have been losing subscribers lately. And “losing” probably puts it a bit too mildly. “Hemorrhaging” would be a better word. As far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t come a minute too soon. I hope this just the tip of the iceberg.
These people have been hitting us up for price increases at least once every year, even in years in which they promised they wouldn’t. To top that off, they are always trying to trick us with temporary specials today that will surreptitiously lock us into outrageous subscription fees a few months down the road if we fail to read the fine print. In addition, they’ve never allowed us to select only the channels we want. No, to get five or six channels that I actually watch, I must pay for 60 crappy channels that I never watch. Oddly enough, they see nothing wrong with requiring people to pay for stuff they don’t want.
Their loss of subscribers is probably due to two main issues. First, with bad economy, people are having to give up luxury items such TV subscription in order to pay their mortgages and buy food and medicine. Second, people are turning to the Internet, where they see what they actually want to see – no more, no less – either for free or at reasonable price. At any rate, there will be few tears shed for big pay TV moguls.
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