Cable TV Faces "Affordability Crisis"

From The Article:

Cable tv faces an "affordability crisis," says Craig Moffett, senior analyst at Bernstein Research in New York, in a report to his clients today, according to the Philly.com...

...Moffett contends that "lower-end customers" are lowering their necessities, to pay-as-you-go mobile phones and internet video, and "the trade-down for the bottom end is faster than the trade-up for the top," he says, referring to the higher income bracket of consumer's adoption of smartphones and data plans.

Moffett concluded the report by saying that tens of millions of Americans "when faced with a choice of pay TV" or the basic necessities, an increasing amount of consumers will "choose to make do" with "good enough" video and phone service, instead of going deeper into debt to pay with money they don't have.

Read More: Cable TV Faces "Affordability Crisis" | ThirdAge



From Philly.com: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/i...ntegrates.html

consumers will "choose to make do" with "good enough" video and phone service, instead of going deeper into debt to pay with money they don't have.

It makes it sound like I'm settling for inferior products and services if I make these kind of choices. And that's just not true.

Actually, my financial decisions in these matters are "Value Based": How much bang I get for my buck. OTA TV is the best bargain, giving me news and entertainment for only the initial cost of equipment. The content and picture quality ranges from acceptable to superb, but that's exactly what I get from pay TV. Except that the picture quality on pay TV is rarely "superb".

My "pay as you go" mobile phone cost me $15, with no contract. Nobody really "NEEDS" to be on the phone all the time, do they? It has a full QWERTY keyboard, camera, MP3 player, internet access (that I never use, but nice to have in an emergency) and even java-based apps. My wife and I both have one, it costs us a total of about $42 EVERY 3 MONTHS. If we really want to chit-chat with anyone for more than a few minutes, our home phone is powered by Magic Jack and and costs less than $2 a month- and calls anywhere in the US for no extra charge.

Basically, as a middle class consumer, your back is up against the wall, and you do what you have to do to protect yourself from CEOs, government taxes and "fees" and corporate pirates.

Paying more for something doesn't make it better.