What Consumers Cling to in Lean Times: Cell phones in, cable TV out

businessweek.com

I'm 24 and I've never owned a TV nor do I ever plan to. There's very little on TV that I want that I can't get in a much more convenient way (according to my own schedule, for example) online. A lot of my friends are the same way. I'm not sure if it's just me and my peers, or if in general people my age group and under are simply finding TV obsolete. I suspect it's the latter.

I cancelled cable TV a couple of days ago. I was expecting the advisor to launch into a script designed to persuade me otherwise - probably offer me free TV for a month during which time I would reconsider. No, they seemed accustomed to my request and I was disconnected 5 minutes later. Moral of the story: easy way to save money right now.

Big foolishness on the part of your cable provider.

They (and others) are going to look back at this period and wonder why they sat around watching that part of their business dissolve instead of pouring money into keeping subscribers and figuring out how to reach more folks. (Such as more diverse programming plans at a lower rate.)

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