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23% of Netflix Customers Cut Cord for Broadband

post #1 of 61
2/20/13 at 11:12pm
Thread Starter 
A new survey reveals that almost 1/4 of Netflix subscribers canceled their premium cable subscriptions after signing up for Netflix. Customers who cut the cord spent their money on broadband internet service instead. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings denies their streaming video product hurts channels like HBO and Showtime, yet with the successful launch of House of Cards it seems Netflix is competing directly with the premium cable giants and inflicting some pain in the process. This year Netflix has a number of new, original shows in their production pipeline. I wonder if the defection from premium cable will continue.


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About 23% of Netflix subscribers said they have canceled their premium TV service, opting instead to pay for broadband access to stream TV shows and movies over the Internet, according to a survey of 1,200 people conducted last week by financial services firm Cowen & Co. - source: homemediamagazine.com

Edited by imagic - 2/21/13 at 9:56am
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post #2 of 61
2/21/13 at 8:56am
As a matter of fact, I was contemplating doing that. I am not sure when but I will do that if I can consistently connect to superhd and their superhd selection keeps growing at a moderate rate.
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post #3 of 61
2/25/13 at 1:25am
I did it. And it has worked out great for me.

I use my PS3 with an ethernet connection to watch hi-def TV and Movies via Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, and Amazon Instant. My HDTV has a built-in HD tuner, so I use my existing coax cable to get digital cable, which is free. That takes care of a reasonable amount of professional sports and current network shows. All in all, I get this for the cost of internet, Netflix fee, and whatever I order in on-demand purchases. It's considerably less than what I was paying for cable. I love it.
Edited by jayromy - 2/25/13 at 6:04am
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post #4 of 61
2/25/13 at 5:44am
I'm not ready to cut the cord but anectdotally I have quite a few friend that have done so within the past few months.
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post #5 of 61
2/25/13 at 7:30am
The combination I have between OTA HD antenna, streaming video through my BR player (including Netflix) and an Android "stick" computer for much more video, games and apps is cheap, versatile and ideal. The thousands I save in cable fees a year is great too. Cable needs to evolve or die.
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post #6 of 61
2/25/13 at 8:27am
If it weren't for LIVE sports, my local teams, etc...I wouldn't have cable either, but I don't know of a way to get my local sports without it.
I'd be good with NetFlix and Hulu if I could only get those live local sports.
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post #7 of 61
2/25/13 at 9:12am
I am in the same predicament. Don't know how I would be able to watch my local sports teams.

I am almost certain Hulu Plus will cover most programming but I would also miss the Showtime and HBO series I watch.
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post #8 of 61
2/25/13 at 10:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by properbostonian View Post

I am in the same predicament. Don't know how I would be able to watch my local sports teams.

I am almost certain Hulu Plus will cover most programming but I would also miss the Showtime and HBO series I watch.

True, HBO would be hard to replace as well.
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post #9 of 61
2/25/13 at 11:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisjmccord View Post

True, HBO would be hard to replace as well.

HBO GO solves that. Quality suffers but with it but it's only a matter of time before they offer their own cord cutter package for money...
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post #10 of 61
2/25/13 at 11:19am
I cut off the satellite in favor of Netflix streaming two years ago. I am saving about $1100 per year. Netflix is reasonably generous with the number of logins, allowing me to connect my main room, bedroom, and mobile devices.
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post #11 of 61
2/25/13 at 2:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BroncoAZ View Post

I cut off the satellite in favor of Netflix streaming two years ago. I am saving about $1100 per year. Netflix is reasonably generous with the number of logins, allowing me to connect my main room, bedroom, and mobile devices.

I would love to do the same thing. If there was someway to stream HGTV, I would do it today. HGTV is my wife's favorite station.



Anyone know how?



m
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post #12 of 61
2/25/13 at 4:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bewlaybrothers View Post

HBO GO solves that. Quality suffers but with it but it's only a matter of time before they offer their own cord cutter package for money...

I have to have an Cable Company's service and account to use HBO to GO right now, so it doesn't solve that. Until they offer it without a cable company.
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post #13 of 61
2/25/13 at 10:55pm
I was cable free and only had Netflix for a couple years, but then I watched / caught up on almost everything I cared to and started to remember how much I liked live sports. So now I'm back to cable and no Netflix. I use the Amazon Prime streaming for quite a few shows now.

There was a period of time when the streaming was a bit inconsistent for me in both audio and picture quality. Amazon looked / sounded better to me at the time and I've gone with that ever since.
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post #14 of 61
2/26/13 at 12:44am
Most of America does NOT have the internet speed to do this and if and when they do get it their ISPs
are all considering DATA CAPS which will make the proposition a non money saver.

So what the point ?

Save very little to no money for crap resolution in a lot of cases.......................
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post #15 of 61
2/26/13 at 4:56am
Thread Starter 
Are you able to prove any of your assertions, perhaps with a link or two to a relevant article?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetmeck View Post

Most of America does NOT have the internet speed to do this and if and when they do get it their ISPs
are all considering DATA CAPS which will make the proposition a non money saver.

So what the point ?

Save very little to no money for crap resolution in a lot of cases.......................
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post #16 of 61
2/26/13 at 5:47am
I'm slowly coming to the realization that I need to do this as well. But not for Netflix. Netflix has nothing current worth watching. Whats keeping from doing so really is that something I just wanna watch a block of big bang theory. I should add up all the series that I watch and what it would cost to just by the individual episodes/seasons.
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post #17 of 61
2/26/13 at 5:49am
If you go geographically it is probably true. But if you go by the population, since the majority of people live in more densely populated areas, most people would probably have access to decent internet speeds.
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post #18 of 61
2/26/13 at 7:10am
...
Edited by PobjoySpecial - 5/16/13 at 2:33pm
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post #19 of 61
2/26/13 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PobjoySpecial View Post

Here's AT&T U-Verse as an example (not including promos, taxes or fees):

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Netflix costs ~$8/mo. and 1080p requires ~6Mbps internet connection, which normally costs ~$46/mo. for 250GB with a $10/50GB overage charge.

1) $54/mo. gives you ~95 hours of streaming, around 3 hours per streamer per night, or ~$0.57/hr. streamed.

Simple, really...[/i] smile.gif

You forget that you also use the internet for other things other than Netflix. Email, Facebook, Youtube videos etc. You ascribed the total internet bill to Netflix. What make more sense is ascribing just the increase in charge fm. going from a slow 3MPS (which few people now use anyway) to the 6mps to get the best Netflix streaming available. BTW, for now, Comcast has decided not to impose a 250G cap on usage. They were talking about it.
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post #20 of 61
2/26/13 at 11:39am
Thread Starter 
I took what I was paying for cable TV and invested it in a higher tier of service from Comcast. The unenforced data limit is 600Gb and I can achieve 105Mbps on downloads, yet my monthly bill is lower than it ever when I had TV services. All streaming services work at their very best, and my connection can support multiple HD streams concurrently. Everything web-related is enhanced, even my PS3 feels faster... and in the long run the tiny increments of time saved add up. For me, the switch has paid off. Netflix was a small part of what made the decision to cut the cord easy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snidely View Post

You forget that you also use the internet for other things other than Netflix. Email, Facebook, Youtube videos etc. You ascribed the total internet bill to Netflix. What make more sense is ascribing just the increase in charge fm. going from a slow 3MPS (which few people now use anyway) to the 6mps to get the best Netflix streaming available. BTW, for now, Comcast has decided not to impose a 250G cap on usage. They were talking about it.
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post #21 of 61
2/26/13 at 2:00pm
All the math is good when a small percentage of people do this switch over. For the majority of users, TV signal and Internet comes from the same company. As an example, where I am in western Canada, there are three sources of TV(Bell, Shaw and Telus) and two sources of Internet(Shaw and Telus). When companies that supply TV signal realize that they are losing customers to Netflix in hoards, they will either jack up the price of each tier of internet service, or enforce the data limit, or both. It is just a matter of time. Right now, the numbers are small but I am sure this phenomenon isn't lost on the big companies.
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post #22 of 61
2/26/13 at 2:14pm
Thread Starter 
Netflix is just a tiny piece of the pie. I use it so infrequently, it's less than 1% of my data usage. The heavy data usage comes from Vudu and iTunes. Yeah I pay a lot for my internet, but like I said it has so many benefits that when I finally get around to watching Netflix in 1080p on my PS3 it's truly just icing on the cake - it really looks and sounds amazing. When it comes to this business, I think the cable providers will have to adapt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vishwa Somayaji View Post

All the math is good when a small percentage of people do this switch over. For the majority of users, TV signal and Internet comes from the same company. As an example, where I am in western Canada, there are three sources of TV(Bell, Shaw and Telus) and two sources of Internet(Shaw and Telus). When companies that supply TV signal realize that they are losing customers to Netflix in hoards, they will either jack up the price of each tier of internet service, or enforce the data limit, or both. It is just a matter of time. Right now, the numbers are small but I am sure this phenomenon isn't lost on the big companies.

Edited by imagic - 2/26/13 at 2:21pm
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post #23 of 61
2/26/13 at 2:40pm
I got rid of the cable premium channels shortly after getting NetFlix. My internet speed was already more than enough for streaming. It just seemed like HBO was no longer producing anything interesting, nothing like The Wire or Treme. I still have a cable digital package mainly for sports. Now that Formula One racing is going to be on Fox this year maybe I can dump cable altogether. Have to get a decent antenna and give OTA a try.
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post #24 of 61
2/26/13 at 2:57pm
Thread Starter 
I get OTA channels in HD for free through my cable line even though I only have cable internet service. You should check to see if that's true for you before worrying about an antenna. Sports were my issue as well, I hope that's what the big broadcast networks concentrate on in the future - sports.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dr_gallup View Post

I got rid of the cable premium channels shortly after getting NetFlix. My internet speed was already more than enough for streaming. It just seemed like HBO was no longer producing anything interesting, nothing like The Wire or Treme. I still have a cable digital package mainly for sports. Now that Formula One racing is going to be on Fox this year maybe I can dump cable altogether. Have to get a decent antenna and give OTA a try.
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post #25 of 61
2/26/13 at 4:36pm
Here's a question for those who have switched over AND using a Harmony remote.

I did some testing with my 1100 and was not able to set up channel changes in the "Favorites"

The Harmony Favorite would not recognize the '.' (period) in the Channel: as an example, channels 71.302, 71.304, 4.2, etc.

If you have such channels stored in your Favorites, how did you do it?


m
Edited by JimShaw - 2/26/13 at 10:08pm
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post #26 of 61
2/26/13 at 8:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimShaw View Post

I would love to do the same thing. If there was someway to stream HGTV, I would do it today. HGTV is my wife's favorite station.



Anyone know how?

I'm in the exact same predicament as you. Wife is saying she's ok with watching what they stream but I know she really would like access to all their programming.
That one damn channel is probably the best thing to happen to cable, for cable companies.

m

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetmeck View Post

Most of America does NOT have the internet speed to do this and if and when they do get it their ISPs
are all considering DATA CAPS which will make the proposition a non money saver.

So what the point ?

Save very little to no money for crap resolution in a lot of cases.......................
At 254 dollars a month if I can cut that to half then that'll be "very little money" I'd very much welcome.
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post #27 of 61
2/26/13 at 10:35pm
The problem in my area is that I only have one choice- Charter. For a short time I had Directv but the trees on the highway grew and blocked my line of sight. I hate Charter and I will cut the cable one day.
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post #28 of 61
2/27/13 at 4:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimShaw View Post

Here's a question for those who have switched over AND using a Harmony remote.

I did some testing with my 1100 and was not able to set up channel changes in the "Favorites"

The Harmony Favorite would not recognize the '.' (period) in the Channel: as an example, channels 71.302, 71.304, 4.2, etc.

If you have such channels stored in your Favorites, how did you do it?


m

Are you able to input hyphens instead?

I've got a nice home server now and I'm about to cut both netflix and cable in favor of internet, XBMC on my HTPC, and Pirate Bay. biggrin.gif

My brother-in-law has a sick ballz setup where every TV show and/or movie he and my sister watch is automatically downloaded in 1080p format and organized on his XBMC for the home network. He gets current shows within 24 hours of airing. They don't pay for cable or Netflix.
Edited by mfrey0118 - 2/27/13 at 4:31am
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post #29 of 61
2/27/13 at 4:53am
It's only a matter of time for me, before I cut off DISH Network completely.Honestly I'm not watching that much TV as it is, and with Netflix and HULU I just don't need it. I'll use an Antenna to get all my local stations.
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post #30 of 61
2/27/13 at 6:06am
I aint ready to cut the cord just yet. Netflix dont offer enough as of yet for me to do that.
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