Report: Cable Cutting Termed Myth

We've all heard the rumors, maybe even felt the temptation. Everybody else is doing it, right? Cutting the cord and watching TV over the Internet.

Except it’s not true, according to Evan Horowitz at The Boston Globe. He writer Cord-cutters are rare beasts, like white rhinos or Beyonce-haters.

And there are good reasons for that says Horowtiz.  To begin with, even if you drop pay TV, you still need an Internet connection — generally provided by the very same companies, folks like Comcast and Verizon Fios. And their subscription packages are hedged to ensure that if your TV bill goes down, your Internet bill will go up.

At the same time, cord-cutters often lose out on a huge swath of content that’s available only through pay TV, including a lot of high-demand sports.

The thin trickle of households that have dropped pay TV in recent years is barely enough to make a dent in the industry.

Just under 100 million households have some form of pay TV according to Nielsen surveys, whether it comes via cable, satellite, or alternatives like Verizon Fios and AT&T U-Verse. That’s lower than it was a few years ago, when 105 million households had pay TV, but it’s hardly a revolution and there’s no sign of an accelerating trend.

A separate survey by the Leichtman Research Group found that about 83 percent of households had pay TV subscriptions in 2015. That’s down from the 87 percent with pay TV in 2010, but actually higher than the 81 percent in 2005.

Bottom line, pay TV remains a staple of the American diet.

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