Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's bring in Alexis christopheris Now and ABC
News Business correspondent Alexis, How are you welcome in? Oh wait,
she's on the phone. I need to push Oh there
you are. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I was. I'm you know, I'm I'm a terrible multitasker.
I'll just admit it. I'm terrible.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I had to push the button. I was like, where's
the button that I have to push?
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Alexis, I can send you pictures. We have pictures.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You don't want to I want to?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
No, no, no, nobody wants to see those.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Nobody. Hey, you know this is the thing. How long
have we.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Heard this Alexis from you know, cut the cord and
save money? And I mean we've heard this over probably
what the last five eight years? And how it's you know,
cut the cable, cut the cable, you save money and
so on. And I keep seeing these stories because look,
I'm one of those people too. I'm like, oh, I've
got multiple streaming platforms that I subscribe to, and I
(00:55):
start adding them all up, but I start running out
of fingers trying to add them all up, and I go, man,
these are starting to if not already exceeding what I
used to pay for that thing called cable. And now
with Netflix going up and other streamers and so on,
what don't we have here?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Is this more bad news?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah? I mean you just described I think TV life
for most Americans right now. We were so happy when
these streaming services came on. It's like, oh great, it's
going to be a la carte. You know, we'll be
able to pay for what we really want, what we
really watch. Until, you know, the streaming services started to
play by the cable rules. It looks a lot more
like cable nowadays, doesn't it. So I hate to break
(01:33):
it to you, but the golden age of you know
all you can watch streaming for ten dollars a month
and no commercials is pretty much gone. I mean this
is this week was the fourth time in three years
that Netflix raised some prices, and other streaming services have
been doing the same. Disney Plus, which we know has
Hulu and ESPN plus Apple tv Plus we're paying. You're
paying more for just about every streaming service you have.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So give us some examples. I'm seeing you know, it's
going to cost you more to watch squid Game, for instance,
Netflix bumping up its price plans. I thought, right now,
and you mentioned well in this lead it's about you know,
standard monthly subscription without advertisements, and the numbers I'm seeing here,
I thought I was paying more than this even right now.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But you know, what are we.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Talking about with this, right okay?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So I mean what's interesting too is Netflix came out
with earnings this week. They were gangbusters and they added
nineteen million subscribers worldwide last quarter. So in just three
months they added nineteen million people. There's still raising prices
and here's the deal. Standard with commercials going up a
buck a month to seven ninety nine, Standard without ads
(02:45):
up to fifty. Now you'll be paying seventeen to ninety
nine for the privilege of watching you know, squid games
without without any commercials.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I feel like if you're going to have a streaming
service for them to now well they let's be honest,
they move the goalpost, you know, people who and you
might be going, look these they they can't see the future,
so they've got to try to, you know, absorb the
costs that they're and look, I can't help it that
they're paying these crazy amounts of money to get the
(03:17):
types of programming that we are receiving from them. I
just hate that They're like, Okay, you can get this
busted down version where you're interrupted constantly, like you're watching
regular you know, terrestrial TV, which is so interesting. Well yeah,
and I'm exactly And even though there's a countdown right
on the screen, because I you know, I experience that.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Or whatever, I'm okay.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I guess what I should say is I will pay
the premium price. But gosh, at what point do they go,
all right, you can pay you can pay that, but
you're locked in for twenty four months or thirty six
you know, give me something other than all right, I'm
locked in until they figure, oh let's raise it again.
That's the thing I start struggling with, right right.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
And you know the thing is, we thought they might
lose some subscribers when they started raising prices, and actually
the opposite has happened. So when they do offer a
lower price subscription with ads, people are flocking to that.
So their feeling is we'll just continue to ask people
to pay whatever the market will bear. If you're willing
to pay this amount, and you you say, okay, I'll
(04:21):
do it, but i'll do it with these ads that
interrupt in the middle of somebody's sentence on a show,
you know, they'll continue to raise the price. There are
some ways around it, you know, let's talk about some
some other ways. I mean, look, if you're if your
show the show you love, and believe me, I understand it.
I have my own. If the show you love is
exclusive to a particular streaming platform, they need to pick
and choose which one am I really going to pay
(04:41):
more for? But there are some other options on free
streaming services they are free, like to the Pluto TV
Roku channel. They have commercials, but they are free. I
don't know what kind of program and they're going to
have you're gonna love. And if you're logged into a
YouTube account, you know you'll see free movies and TV shows,
typically with ads. And you can even watch some programming
on Amazon's Prime Video without being a Prime member. And
(05:04):
here's something I did. I bundled my Netflix subscription with
my mobile carrier. So there are some deals out there.
See what kind of deal sometimes are with ads where
you know a mobile carrier will pick up your bill
for a certain amount of time. With a streaming service,
you know what perfect what also Alexis.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
They do that, I feel like is so irritating, as
opposed to when I you know, i'll I will, I'll
record stuff on regular terrestrial TV and I have the
ability to fast forward through commercials or maybe a for instance,
you know what I do every day, I record multiple
(05:43):
different things in the morning, and I'm able to fast
forward through maybe a traffic update that I'll watch on
a local level, and I'm like, Okay, I don't need
to see that because it's not affecting me, and it happened,
you know, two hours ago, because I'm watching it two
hours later. But they disable the fast forward feature a
lot on So you're sitting there, you're handcuffed on fill
(06:03):
in the blank streaming service and you've got to watch those.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You can't fast forward through them.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So at least you cannot well release that at least
let me commercials, though they will can block that.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
So you must watch this commercial. You can skip. I
haven't experience that. Yeah, yeah you can. You have to
watch the first one and then the next two you
can skip.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, well I have any but.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You just hit it because if they allowed that, that
that's the great big loophole around the commercials so if
you're if you paid for your ad to be seen
in front of so many people, they're not going to
allow you to fast forward and perhaps skip over some
of those those commercials. And look they're trying to you know,
Netflix said, look, we're trying to still bring you value.
Now they've moved into the sporting events arena, they've got
(06:44):
some NFL games. That Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight. I
know it had it hit its hiccups, it really did.
It was hard to watch technically, but they had a
record number of people streaming, and they didn't. What they're
saying is, look, we didn't ask you to pay more
for the fight. It wasn't pay per view in the
way remember HBO you used to do it still does,
so it was included in your monthly your monthly fee.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Here's the thing I don't I don't have a problem
with if if on my streaming platform fill in the blank,
because we know Thursday Night Football now has been on
Amazon Prime and some other football has been on Amazon Prime,
not just Thursday Night Football now. We know Netflix. You
know I'm a Steeler fan. I had on Christmas Day
I watch that and it ended up being fine.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
It's like, I'm so conditioned to watching sports live sports
on regular terrestrial TV that I'm okay with commercials through that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I don't. I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
If I'm watching a series right and you go, I
want to binge this and I gotta watch now, I
gotta watch commercials through this series that didn't even hit
terrestrial TV, it's it doesn't seem right. Or you're watching
a movie on a streaming service that you just you're
we're kind of conditioned unless we're watching a movie from
(07:55):
a few years ago on say TBS or whatever, and
you're used to seeing the commercial during that because you're
watching it on a regular TV. But when you see
a movie and then they're still commercial, it's like if
they did that at the theater when you go to
watch them. That's the way I feel like it. It's
like they're robbing us, and uh they continue down that road.
I feel like it's gonna end up, it'll hurt them
(08:16):
in the long run. I feel like possibly because I'm
one of those people, I'm like, I don't have time
for this.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's it's stupid, Like why am I paying for this?
Some things I'm okay with some things.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I'm like, nah, you need to leave that alone, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And I'll tell you what. I've watched the football games
on Amazon and they're really glitchy and they're hard to
watch sometimes. I mean, if you know, it's one thing,
if you're gonna charge me, and then you're gonna charge
me and the quality is not there, I mean, what
where is the value at the end of the day.
And I think that's something these streaming services need to
work on, because more and more guys they are looking
and feeling and charging, just like the cable companies have.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I'm waiting to see maybe emerging like Netflix says, okay,
we're nineteen ninety nine a month. Okay, but for ten dollars,
you can buy a series of o la carte programs
from Paramount Network that will make available on the Netflix platform,
and Paramount makes money, Netflix gets more customers. I could
see something like that happening down the line, because there's
(09:10):
select things. I have Paramounts pretty much exclusively for Tulsa King. Honestly, yeah, hope,
the reason I got.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It, I see what you're saying there. But I will
say that's almost like Chevy going We'll feature some Ford
features inside of our vehicle for a little bit more.
If you if you like Ford, but you want to
drive a Chevy, but you like some of the Ford features,
We'll put some of the Ford features inside of a Chevy.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
General Motors kind of did that, I mean, be on
a Cadillac saying pretty much car except the trim was different.
So forth.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah, so I mean products.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
I don't know how it would work specifically, I could
just see it the way it's evolving in the expensive
nature of everything, because I really think I've been thinking
I need to just get cable back.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean a lot of people, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I was gonna say, Alexis I feel like maybe it
sounds like you're really plugged into this and you know
what's going on. I have direct TV. I don't have
direct TV streaming. I still have the satellite. I'm old
school man, I'm fifty five.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I still have the dish I do.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I have the dish in the backyard and I got
it set up, and you know, I've become kind of
a I'm kind of a pro master, if you will,
with that, because I've got it all figured out here
in Ohio, we can get some snow or some heavy
rain that will kind of do. But they've kind of
worked around that too, So they've come up with some
technology that kind of gets around that and it's not cheap.
(10:31):
But I still haven't let that go all the way.
But then they're kind of winning because I'm still getting
the streaming stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Too, So yeah, I hear you. And where I am,
we have fiber optic lines. Now that's better. We're getting
better service. I do still have table and I do
have streaming services. I mean, I have done the math,
and I am paying more now for all my entertainment
than I was, you know, just a couple of years ago.
And that's not what we had planned for.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Alexis Christoph forsa ABC News business correspondent.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
This is interesting and we knew it was coming.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And unfortunately we're going to get incremental increases for all
these until they stop gaining subscribers. That's the key here.
They're actually, yeah, they're elevating their bottom line and they're going, hey,
we can just keep hitting them over the head. They're
going to keep paying, you know, so at some point
it could change, you never know. But Alexis. Thank you
so much for jumping on with us. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You bet my pleasure. Bye, guys, see you all right.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I'm serious about this going back to cable thing. I
really am. In fact, I've got two days on my
current Internet before my bill cycle goes over because they've
been taking me off too. It's like every weekend it happens.
This Sunday was eight forty pm. I'm not joking. Every
weekend my Internet I have to go up and reset
the modem to re establish it, and it's getting old.
(11:48):
I'm paying too much. It should stay on.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, no, I have one hundred percent agree.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
So I'm thinking about maybe here over the next two
days making the big switch and just bringing back cable
and canceling well the streams. It'll sting a fortune.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, I'm doing both because I've got people under the
age of you know, twenty one in my house that
the streaming thing, they both of them.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
This is funny.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I'll come home and I'll see something on the TV
and I think, oh, Okay, they're on direct TV, and
they're not. They're streaming it from one of the streaming services.
They don't even they don't even flip around the remote.
The direct TV remote stays. The batteries last forever, because
I'm about the only one. Me and Jenny are about
the only ones that ever use that remote. My kids
(12:32):
use the other one. And they're streaming a bunch of
stuff and it looks they'll even start streaming live TV
that is on direct TV, and I go, why do
you do that? It gets glitchy and you can watch
it on direct TV and it's smoother, it's a better
looking huh, you know, just huh. And I'm like, whatever,
never mind, it's a but to your point, I called
(12:53):
DirecTV and I'll do this once a year and on
vest ten minutes, twelve minutes. And you gotta call during
the day. Don't try it late because you will not
talk to you know, someone you can understand. I'll just
say it, and you can talk to somebody that you
can understand, maybe even with a Southern accent, that is
really interested in helping you.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
And they'll look and they'll.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Find you some disc I found a discount. I found
your discount. Honey, you got and I so I'll invest
once a year. But dude, they will work with you.
I've gotten what otherwise would have been one hundred and
eighty dollars in programming down to like one oh five
a month.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
I you know, one of the reasons I canceled my
last cable was because every like sixteen months or so,
they my bill would jump up yep, and I'd call
and they'd always bring it right back down again. I'm like,
why the hell do we do this dance? Yes, every
year and a half. I got to do this with you.
If you can do this price, do this price, and
if you can't, then tell me that and I will
(13:49):
either pay the higher price or I won't. But stop
making E call you and do this.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
There's millions of subscribers of whatever fill in the blank
you're talking about, and so it just automatically kicks it
out of there after that promotional period is over. I
don't think it's something they do automatically. It's just the computers.
Their computers are set to go okay, that's the end
of that, and they kicks you out and then you go, hey,
wait a minute, and they go, okay, we'll reset it
(14:14):
for you. No, but you're right, you wish that you
could just be like, how about you guys, do that
we stop this dance, circumvent all that, and you just
take care of me before I have to call, and
then I'm happier then or what
All right, let's bring in Alexis christopheris Now and ABC
News Business correspondent Alexis, How are you welcome in? Oh wait,
she's on the phone. I need to push Oh there
you are. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I was. I'm you know, I'm I'm a terrible multitasker.
I'll just admit it. I'm terrible.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I had to push the button. I was like, where's
the button that I have to push?
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Alexis, I can send you pictures. We have pictures.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You don't want to I want to?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
No, no, no, nobody wants to see those.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Nobody. Hey, you know this is the thing. How long
have we.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Heard this Alexis from you know, cut the cord and
save money? And I mean we've heard this over probably
what the last five eight years? And how it's you know,
cut the cable, cut the cable, you save money and
so on. And I keep seeing these stories because look,
I'm one of those people too. I'm like, oh, I've
got multiple streaming platforms that I subscribe to, and I
(00:55):
start adding them all up, but I start running out
of fingers trying to add them all up, and I go, man,
these are starting to if not already exceeding what I
used to pay for that thing called cable. And now
with Netflix going up and other streamers and so on,
what don't we have here?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Is this more bad news?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah? I mean you just described I think TV life
for most Americans right now. We were so happy when
these streaming services came on. It's like, oh great, it's
going to be a la carte. You know, we'll be
able to pay for what we really want, what we
really watch. Until, you know, the streaming services started to
play by the cable rules. It looks a lot more
like cable nowadays, doesn't it. So I hate to break
(01:33):
it to you, but the golden age of you know
all you can watch streaming for ten dollars a month
and no commercials is pretty much gone. I mean this
is this week was the fourth time in three years
that Netflix raised some prices, and other streaming services have
been doing the same. Disney Plus, which we know has
Hulu and ESPN plus Apple tv Plus we're paying. You're
paying more for just about every streaming service you have.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So give us some examples. I'm seeing you know, it's
going to cost you more to watch squid Game, for instance,
Netflix bumping up its price plans. I thought, right now,
and you mentioned well in this lead it's about you know,
standard monthly subscription without advertisements, and the numbers I'm seeing here,
I thought I was paying more than this even right now.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But you know, what are we.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Talking about with this, right okay?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So I mean what's interesting too is Netflix came out
with earnings this week. They were gangbusters and they added
nineteen million subscribers worldwide last quarter. So in just three
months they added nineteen million people. There's still raising prices
and here's the deal. Standard with commercials going up a
buck a month to seven ninety nine, Standard without ads
(02:45):
up to fifty. Now you'll be paying seventeen to ninety
nine for the privilege of watching you know, squid games
without without any commercials.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I feel like if you're going to have a streaming
service for them to now well they let's be honest,
they move the goalpost, you know, people who and you
might be going, look these they they can't see the future,
so they've got to try to, you know, absorb the
costs that they're and look, I can't help it that
they're paying these crazy amounts of money to get the
(03:17):
types of programming that we are receiving from them. I
just hate that They're like, Okay, you can get this
busted down version where you're interrupted constantly, like you're watching
regular you know, terrestrial TV, which is so interesting. Well yeah,
and I'm exactly And even though there's a countdown right
on the screen, because I you know, I experience that.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Or whatever, I'm okay.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I guess what I should say is I will pay
the premium price. But gosh, at what point do they go,
all right, you can pay you can pay that, but
you're locked in for twenty four months or thirty six
you know, give me something other than all right, I'm
locked in until they figure, oh let's raise it again.
That's the thing I start struggling with, right right.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
And you know the thing is, we thought they might
lose some subscribers when they started raising prices, and actually
the opposite has happened. So when they do offer a
lower price subscription with ads, people are flocking to that.
So their feeling is we'll just continue to ask people
to pay whatever the market will bear. If you're willing
to pay this amount, and you you say, okay, I'll
(04:21):
do it, but i'll do it with these ads that
interrupt in the middle of somebody's sentence on a show,
you know, they'll continue to raise the price. There are
some ways around it, you know, let's talk about some
some other ways. I mean, look, if you're if your
show the show you love, and believe me, I understand it.
I have my own. If the show you love is
exclusive to a particular streaming platform, they need to pick
and choose which one am I really going to pay
(04:41):
more for? But there are some other options on free
streaming services they are free, like to the Pluto TV
Roku channel. They have commercials, but they are free. I
don't know what kind of program and they're going to
have you're gonna love. And if you're logged into a
YouTube account, you know you'll see free movies and TV shows,
typically with ads. And you can even watch some programming
on Amazon's Prime Video without being a Prime member. And
(05:04):
here's something I did. I bundled my Netflix subscription with
my mobile carrier. So there are some deals out there.
See what kind of deal sometimes are with ads where
you know a mobile carrier will pick up your bill
for a certain amount of time. With a streaming service,
you know what perfect what also Alexis.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
They do that, I feel like is so irritating, as
opposed to when I you know, i'll I will, I'll
record stuff on regular terrestrial TV and I have the
ability to fast forward through commercials or maybe a for instance,
you know what I do every day, I record multiple
(05:43):
different things in the morning, and I'm able to fast
forward through maybe a traffic update that I'll watch on
a local level, and I'm like, Okay, I don't need
to see that because it's not affecting me, and it happened,
you know, two hours ago, because I'm watching it two
hours later. But they disable the fast forward feature a
lot on So you're sitting there, you're handcuffed on fill
(06:03):
in the blank streaming service and you've got to watch those.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You can't fast forward through them.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So at least you cannot well release that at least
let me commercials, though they will can block that.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
So you must watch this commercial. You can skip. I
haven't experience that. Yeah, yeah you can. You have to
watch the first one and then the next two you
can skip.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, well I have any but.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You just hit it because if they allowed that, that
that's the great big loophole around the commercials so if
you're if you paid for your ad to be seen
in front of so many people, they're not going to
allow you to fast forward and perhaps skip over some
of those those commercials. And look they're trying to you know,
Netflix said, look, we're trying to still bring you value.
Now they've moved into the sporting events arena, they've got
(06:44):
some NFL games. That Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight. I
know it had it hit its hiccups, it really did.
It was hard to watch technically, but they had a
record number of people streaming, and they didn't. What they're
saying is, look, we didn't ask you to pay more
for the fight. It wasn't pay per view in the
way remember HBO you used to do it still does,
so it was included in your monthly your monthly fee.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Here's the thing I don't I don't have a problem
with if if on my streaming platform fill in the blank,
because we know Thursday Night Football now has been on
Amazon Prime and some other football has been on Amazon Prime,
not just Thursday Night Football now. We know Netflix. You
know I'm a Steeler fan. I had on Christmas Day
I watch that and it ended up being fine.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
It's like, I'm so conditioned to watching sports live sports
on regular terrestrial TV that I'm okay with commercials through that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I don't. I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
If I'm watching a series right and you go, I
want to binge this and I gotta watch now, I
gotta watch commercials through this series that didn't even hit
terrestrial TV, it's it doesn't seem right. Or you're watching
a movie on a streaming service that you just you're
we're kind of conditioned unless we're watching a movie from
(07:55):
a few years ago on say TBS or whatever, and
you're used to seeing the commercial during that because you're
watching it on a regular TV. But when you see
a movie and then they're still commercial, it's like if
they did that at the theater when you go to
watch them. That's the way I feel like it. It's
like they're robbing us, and uh they continue down that road.
I feel like it's gonna end up, it'll hurt them
(08:16):
in the long run. I feel like possibly because I'm
one of those people, I'm like, I don't have time
for this.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's it's stupid, Like why am I paying for this?
Some things I'm okay with some things.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I'm like, nah, you need to leave that alone, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And I'll tell you what. I've watched the football games
on Amazon and they're really glitchy and they're hard to
watch sometimes. I mean, if you know, it's one thing,
if you're gonna charge me, and then you're gonna charge
me and the quality is not there, I mean, what
where is the value at the end of the day.
And I think that's something these streaming services need to
work on, because more and more guys they are looking
and feeling and charging, just like the cable companies have.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I'm waiting to see maybe emerging like Netflix says, okay,
we're nineteen ninety nine a month. Okay, but for ten dollars,
you can buy a series of o la carte programs
from Paramount Network that will make available on the Netflix platform,
and Paramount makes money, Netflix gets more customers. I could
see something like that happening down the line, because there's
(09:10):
select things. I have Paramounts pretty much exclusively for Tulsa King. Honestly, yeah, hope,
the reason I got.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It, I see what you're saying there. But I will
say that's almost like Chevy going We'll feature some Ford
features inside of our vehicle for a little bit more.
If you if you like Ford, but you want to
drive a Chevy, but you like some of the Ford features,
We'll put some of the Ford features inside of a Chevy.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
General Motors kind of did that, I mean, be on
a Cadillac saying pretty much car except the trim was different.
So forth.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah, so I mean products.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
I don't know how it would work specifically, I could
just see it the way it's evolving in the expensive
nature of everything, because I really think I've been thinking
I need to just get cable back.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean a lot of people, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I was gonna say, Alexis I feel like maybe it
sounds like you're really plugged into this and you know
what's going on. I have direct TV. I don't have
direct TV streaming. I still have the satellite. I'm old
school man, I'm fifty five.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I still have the dish I do.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I have the dish in the backyard and I got
it set up, and you know, I've become kind of
a I'm kind of a pro master, if you will,
with that, because I've got it all figured out here
in Ohio, we can get some snow or some heavy
rain that will kind of do. But they've kind of
worked around that too, So they've come up with some
technology that kind of gets around that and it's not cheap.
(10:31):
But I still haven't let that go all the way.
But then they're kind of winning because I'm still getting
the streaming stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Too, So yeah, I hear you. And where I am,
we have fiber optic lines. Now that's better. We're getting
better service. I do still have table and I do
have streaming services. I mean, I have done the math,
and I am paying more now for all my entertainment
than I was, you know, just a couple of years ago.
And that's not what we had planned for.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Alexis Christoph forsa ABC News business correspondent.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
This is interesting and we knew it was coming.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And unfortunately we're going to get incremental increases for all
these until they stop gaining subscribers. That's the key here.
They're actually, yeah, they're elevating their bottom line and they're going, hey,
we can just keep hitting them over the head. They're
going to keep paying, you know, so at some point
it could change, you never know. But Alexis. Thank you
so much for jumping on with us. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You bet my pleasure. Bye, guys, see you all right.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I'm serious about this going back to cable thing. I
really am. In fact, I've got two days on my
current Internet before my bill cycle goes over because they've
been taking me off too. It's like every weekend it happens.
This Sunday was eight forty pm. I'm not joking. Every
weekend my Internet I have to go up and reset
the modem to re establish it, and it's getting old.
(11:48):
I'm paying too much. It should stay on.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, no, I have one hundred percent agree.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
So I'm thinking about maybe here over the next two
days making the big switch and just bringing back cable
and canceling well the streams. It'll sting a fortune.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, I'm doing both because I've got people under the
age of you know, twenty one in my house that
the streaming thing, they both of them.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
This is funny.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I'll come home and I'll see something on the TV
and I think, oh, Okay, they're on direct TV, and
they're not. They're streaming it from one of the streaming services.
They don't even they don't even flip around the remote.
The direct TV remote stays. The batteries last forever, because
I'm about the only one. Me and Jenny are about
the only ones that ever use that remote. My kids
(12:32):
use the other one. And they're streaming a bunch of
stuff and it looks they'll even start streaming live TV
that is on direct TV, and I go, why do
you do that? It gets glitchy and you can watch
it on direct TV and it's smoother, it's a better
looking huh, you know, just huh. And I'm like, whatever,
never mind, it's a but to your point, I called
(12:53):
DirecTV and I'll do this once a year and on
vest ten minutes, twelve minutes. And you gotta call during
the day. Don't try it late because you will not
talk to you know, someone you can understand. I'll just
say it, and you can talk to somebody that you
can understand, maybe even with a Southern accent, that is
really interested in helping you.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
And they'll look and they'll.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Find you some disc I found a discount. I found
your discount. Honey, you got and I so I'll invest
once a year. But dude, they will work with you.
I've gotten what otherwise would have been one hundred and
eighty dollars in programming down to like one oh five
a month.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
I you know, one of the reasons I canceled my
last cable was because every like sixteen months or so,
they my bill would jump up yep, and I'd call
and they'd always bring it right back down again. I'm like,
why the hell do we do this dance? Yes, every
year and a half. I got to do this with you.
If you can do this price, do this price, and
if you can't, then tell me that and I will
(13:49):
either pay the higher price or I won't. But stop
making E call you and do this.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
There's millions of subscribers of whatever fill in the blank
you're talking about, and so it just automatically kicks it
out of there after that promotional period is over. I
don't think it's something they do automatically. It's just the computers.
Their computers are set to go okay, that's the end
of that, and they kicks you out and then you go, hey,
wait a minute, and they go, okay, we'll reset it
(14:14):
for you. No, but you're right, you wish that you
could just be like, how about you guys, do that
we stop this dance, circumvent all that, and you just
take care of me before I have to call, and
then I'm happier then or what
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