Have You Cut Your Cable TV Bill by Threatening to Cancel?
There is a way that we have been doing this for so many years. Everyone knows the method. (If you’ve read Lifehacker for a while, you really know this.) If you feel like you’re paying too much for cable, you call them, ask for a lower price, and threaten to switch to another company that offers an attractive rate to new customers. if they don’t back down.
If that didn’t work (and it usually did), you would dust off your cable box, fumble in the couch cushions for a second remote, and drag the whole thing out to the cable company’s customer service window. Surely, when faced with a bunch of equipment that you have carefully assembled, they will see the mistake of their path and decide that you are a valuable buyer.
But those days may pass, friends. Gone to replace dodos and VHS cassettes.
Bloomberg’s Jerry Smith reported today that many cable TV providers don’t mind if you want to cancel:
Pay TV stocks have experienced sharp fluctuations over the past few years as investors reacted to mounting subscriber losses. But they bounced back as companies turned their focus to lucrative broadband services.
At a recent conference, the CEO of AT&T (which owns DirecTV) said they are cutting back on subscribers who are struggling to maintain ad pricing after their contracts expire.
Time Warner once had 90,000 different prices (!), Ready and waiting to bargain with disgruntled buyers, but in recent years has departed from this “culture of promotion.”
One analyst quoted by Smith said cable company Cable One Inc. helps you choose between online streaming services when you decide to cut the cord.
This is in part because providing the cable means paying for the networks you offer, while selling Internet access results in pure genuine dollar signs.
These royalties, fueled by high-value sports rights, are growing even faster than cable TV bills, negatively impacting the bottom line of companies such as DirecTV and Comcast. It is much more profitable to sell high-speed internet.
Is this the end, friends? Are we doomed to abolish life without the ability to save?
Tell us in the comments: Have you successfully reconciled your cable TV bill, threatening to cancel within the last year or two?