Cutting the Cord: Happiness is a cut cord, survey says
Most pay-TV customers who cut the cord are happy that they parted ways with their cable company.
That's the finding of a new survey of cord cutters from management consulting firm cg42.
Nearly eight out of 10 cord cutters (77%) have no intention of returning to cable and are happy they dropped their pay-TV subscription, based on the 556 cord-cutters the firm surveyed last month. Those surveyed were past customers of the five major cable companies: Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable.
"We found it very interesting that more than three out of four cord cutters were happy with their decision to … leave cable entertainment behind," said Steve Beck, cg42 founder and managing partner. "This is an early indicator of the manifestation of the problems and frustrations people are having with their cable companies."
Another cg42 survey, released in June 2014, found 53% of frustrated consumers would leave their cable company if they had a choice among other providers. This latest survey, released Friday, found "a small and active group of consumers taking an step to do something about it," Beck said.
More than half of those surveyed (60%) had cut the cord within the last six months. While cord cutting is "on the rise a bit," Beck stops short of calling it a trend. "It's still a niche," he said. "I would say it's still early days."
Most cord cutters (70%) still get Internet service from their provider. And most use between two and four online video services for their entertainment content, Beck said.
Most popular service: Netflix, used by 73% of the survey respondents, followed by Hulu Plus (59%) and Amazon Prime (44%).
Very few of them – only 3% -- say they are getting most of their content for free. Cord cutters are not "averse to paying for content," he said. "It's that they are averse to paying for content that they don't need or watch. They want the things that they want."
On average, cable companies lost $811.74 in annual revenue from each cord-cutter, the survey found.
Comcast and Time Warner Cable reported third-quarter losses of 81,000 and 184,000 pay TV subscribers, respectively.
The message for the cable companies is that "this is small now, but ... it is time to start fixing the frustrations you created among your customers by treating them so poorly," Beck said. "Ultimately, (the cable providers) will face challenges and we are starting to see that in this industry."
"Cutting the Cord" is a regular column covering Net TV and ways to get it. If you have suggestions or questions, contact Mike Snider via e-mail. And follow him on Twitter: @MikeSnider.