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The Biden administration wants to ban quit fees for cable customers

Nov 22, 2023
The move is part of the White House effort to get rid of “junk fees” for consumers. Cable TV is already struggling with defections.
Now that consumers can be more selective about the content they have access to through streaming, many have canceled their cable TV bundles.
Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

News and live sports have kept cable TV alive. That might not last much longer.

Aug 25, 2023
CNN and ESPN are looking at more streaming in their futures.
CNN is planning to stream its top shows in real time on Max, formerly known as HBO Max.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Be prepared to navigate a maze to cancel that subscription

Jun 22, 2023
Behavioral economics helps explain why it's hard to unsubscribe.
The FTC alleges that Amazon intentionally complicated the cancellation process for Prime subscription service.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

If ESPN goes to streaming, what happens to cable?

May 19, 2023
Leaders at Disney, which owns ESPN, say it’s an inevitability that the cable channel will migrate to streaming. Such a move would shake up the cable industry.
The CEO of Disney, which owns ESPN, has called the migration of ESPN to streaming “an inevitability.” Above, ESPN College Gameday hosts in 2020.
Matt Cashore-Pool/Getty Images

Cord-cutting options are getting closer to cable TV prices

Jul 3, 2020
YouTube TV now costs $65 a month, almost double its launch price just a few years ago.
The key feature for services like YouTube TV and FuboTV is live sports.
Sanjay Kanojia/AFP via Getty Images

Targeted ads aren't just online, they're on TV

Feb 19, 2019
How targeted ads have migrated to your television
William West/AFP/Getty Images

Why cutting the cord isn't so easy in the U.S.

TV has changed a lot, but cable has managed to stick around one way or another.
Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Comcast

For public good, not for profit.

Pay TV operators zero in on password sharing costs them billions in subscriptions

Dec 20, 2017
Company execs say free watching costs them billions of dollars in subscriptions.

Netflix or cable? Why not both?

Aug 8, 2017
The nation’s third-biggest cable company, Charter Communications, has a new feature for its subscribers: access to Netflix. More than half of the leading cable and subscription TV companies now offer Netflix. It wasn’t too long ago these forces were fierce rivals. So what’s behind the business of partnering instead? Click the audio player above to […]

Trump's love of cable TV creates an opportunity

Feb 6, 2017
President Donald Trump is a big fan of cable TV shows. That makes it more likely that advocates will try to reach him through advertising, which in turn could drive up ad rates.