2024 is already shaping up to be a rough year for cable TV companies. We have seen multiple cable TV companies announce plans to shut down their service in 2024, including KPU in Alaska. Others, like Bailey Cable TV, completely closed down last year without warning its customers thereby cutting them off from Internet and TV service.
A growing number of cable TV companies are struggling to make TV profitable.
According to the city of Baltimore’s budget director, Laura Larsen, the city has fewer than 60,000 cable TV subscribers. That is a 44% drop from the 106,000 subscribers it had in 2020. The 2022 United States Census showed there were about 247,000 households in Baltimore, which means just over 24% of households are paying for cable TV.
A few weeks ago Mid-Rivers Communications, a small cable TV service, shut down its TV service. “Cable TV subscriber counts are on a steep decline as customers move to streaming video. Cable TV is a courtesy we have provided only to certain customers in select areas, while customers in all parts of our service area rely heavily on us for Internet and telephone services. Cable TV makes up only about 10 percent of the Cooperative’s active customer connections today. Traditional cable television services are no longer a sustainable option for small communities,” Mid-Rivers said in a statement on its site back when we first reported this news in June 2023.
Most cable TV companies have struggled to find a buyer, but a few have been bought up by Spectrum reportedly mostly for the Internet customers. Most have been left to slowly die off.
Multiple industry insiders have told Cord Cutters News they expect 2024 to be a rough year for small cable TV companies. A year where we will likely see a growing number of them shut down TV services or just close completely as they fight with cord cutting 2.0 and 5G Home Internet. The question now is how fast and how many will shut down in 2024?
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