Cutting the Cord is Hard

Have you considered cutting the cord? If so, get ready for A LOT of resistance and delays when you try to cancel your services!

My wife and I are downsizing from our large family home to a townhome or condo. We haven’t yet purchased a dwelling so we’re uncertain as to which cable provider we may end up with and, since it’s summer, it seemed like a good time to begin cancelling all the services we don’t need and do it now. Plus, it’s actually highly likely we may not renew a cable subscription anyway.

So let’s say you have decided to cut the cord. Cancelling is not a 5 minute per account adventure.

CANCELLATIONS
Not surprisingly, none of these TV provider subscriptions can be cancelled online. One must talk to a human who will do their best to try to talk you out of it and keep you as a customer. Be prepared to invest at least 45 minutes per cancellation and call earlier in the day rather than later.

• Cancelling Comcast escalated the call from a Philippine-based call center to a U.S.-based “Cancellation Office” where they gave me the third-degree on why I was cancelling. I was forceful that I just wanted to cancel (not put my subscription “on hold”) and they finally cancelled it.
• Cancelling TiVo was another story. Again it was a call center somewhere and the woman, Joyce, made multiple offers to keep my subscription alive. “We can put it on hold” or “We can offer you X months at a reduced rate” and I was having none of it. “I just want to cancel it” and it turned out Joyce was having “technical difficulties” so could not cancel the account. Fortunately, a few hours later, an email came through with a cancellation notification so that’s done.

Here’s is why it’s so hard to cancel. These legacy TV providers are losing subscribers like crazy and are obviously doing whatever they can to hold on to us:

Five of the largest U.S. pay-TV providers posted subscriber losses during the second quarter as younger viewers increasingly cut the cord and moved to “skinny bundles,” or cheaper packages with select channels, and Internet streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. (via Fortune)

CUTTING THE CORD
If you’re like us, or most people we know, the lion’s share of our TV watching is done through streaming boxes (we have an AppleTV and Roku) as well as subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu (commercial free), AcornTV and DirecTV Now (it’s only $10/month since we have an AT&T Unlimited Plus family plan and then we pay $5/month for HBO too).

Two things we considered strongly and are two things to ponder if you’re considering cutting the cord yourself:

1) There isn’t yet a streaming service that can become a cable replacement, one that includes all the major networks and channels one might want or need. For example, DirecTV Now does not yet have all of the Minneapolis/St. Paul local channels. They also do not have CBS at all. So they’re not an option…yet…but parent AT&T has announced big changes for this Fall.

Whether there is a service that hits the sweet-spot of what people need — at price-points we can stomach — is certainly in flux and there is A LOT of uncertainty about who will be that be-all, end-all provider. You can see a good comparison of the top five providers here.

2) Maybe we don’t need to worry about local channels anyway. I just ordered a Mohu antenna that, for $20, will get all the HD channels we need in the Twin Cities and is better quality than what we’ve watched on cable (over-the-air signals are uncompressed so look much better than compressed cable TV signals). For where we’re going to move to next we don’t yet know which antenna we’ll need, but for now this will work great.

Hope this helps if you, too, are considering cutting the cord.