Craig Birkmaier wrote: > As the other article I just posted notes, the loss in viewers is in > the range of 2-3%. As my daughter used to say when she was just starting to speak, "Oh sure, you would say that." Articles written by mouthpieces of the cable industry can be expected to bend the truth. The two articles I posted, instead, got their data from the WSJ, which I think may be a tad more objective. And what it says is that the 4.5 percent cable cutters in 2010 grew to 6.5 percent. I'll avoid the question as to whether or not this includes "cable nevers," by only considering 2010 to today. The Fiercecable.com article points out, using WSJ numbers, something often not mentioned: of the remaining subscribers, let's call that 81 percent of households now, 12 percent have a bare-bones, no extended bundle, no ESPN, not TNT, no Food Network, subscriptions. To me, that says that from 2010 to this past month (forget about the beginning of this year), "the bundle" has lost 2 percent (total cable cutters) plus .81 * 12 percent of US households. The latter being households with bare bones packages. If these WSJ numbers are accurate, "the bundle" lost 11.72 percent of subsidizing US households, Craig, from 2010 to now. Hardly anything to sneeze at. Remember that John Skipper said a 10 percent drop would be enough to cause big changes at ESPN? That's was the point of these latest numbers. To just look at "cord cutters" missed the bigger picture. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.