(http://i1.huffpost.com/gen/2210934/thumbs/n-ROGERS-COMMUNICATIONS-large.jpg) | No wonder Shaw and Rogers, the two largest cable TV providers in Canada, recently joined forces to create a Netflix competitor. Between them, they’ve lost nearly 200,000 cable subscribers in the past year. Rogers’ latest quarterly report (http://www.rogers.com/web/ir/financial-reporting/quarterly-reports), released this week, showed the company lost 111,000 TV subscriptions over the past year, or about 5 per cent of their TV customers. Shaw lost 82,000 over nearly the same period (http://www.shaw.ca/uploadedFiles/Corporate/Investors/Financial_Reports/fourth_quarter_results_2014.pdf), or 4 per cent of their total. Its satellite TV service, Shaw Direct, lost 6,600 customers. If Rogers’ and Shaw’s experience is typical, this would suggest nearly one in 20 Canadian households ditched cable TV over the past year. Both companies managed to offset some of the loss with gains in internet subscribers. Rogers gained 51,000 new internet subscribers, while Shaw saw 71,000 more “standalone” internet customers, meaning internet but no cable. |