Cable executives like Charter CEO Tom Rutledge are insisting that cord cutting is slowing down. “I think in aggregate they’re going to slow down,” said Rutledge. “Because I think most single-family homes have big TVs in them and that’s where you get sports, that’s where you get news, that’s where you get live TV like this. It’s still going to be under price pressure. I’m not saying the category isn’t under pressure. But I think the rate of decline will slow.”

Techdirt reports that “there’s no actual evidence to support that conclusion,” and that cord cutting “has only been accelerating and breaking records throughout 2019.” From the report: [W]ith a number of high profile streaming alternatives like Disney+ and Apple TV+ having launched this month, there’s absolutely no indication that trend is going to change. That’s something being made clear at research firms like UBS, which is actually predicting that things will be getting slightly better for AT&T, and marginally worse for cable giants like Charter: “UBS predicted that the U.S. pay TV industry will lose another 6.2 million video subscribers in 2020, down slightly from the 6.4 million the analyst firm predicts will be lost in total this year. If that loss comes to bear it will represent a 6.7% rate of decline, ahead of 6.2% in 2019 and well ahead of 1.2% in 2018 when video subscriber losses totaled 1.2 million. ‘We now expect industry losses to remain in the 6-7% per year range for the medium term, suggesting worsening trends in domestic core affiliate into next year,’ wrote UBS analyst John Hodulik in a research report. He said that improvement at AT&T will likely be offset by worsening trends for cable providers and other MVPDs.”

The irony here is that Rutledge’s prediction would actually be true if cable giants were willing to compete on price and customer service. But they’re not, so the losses are likely to continue, especially with new services like Disney+ jumping into the fray at a measly $6 a month.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Cable Execs Now Falsely Claiming Cord Cutting Is Slowing Down

hackingbear writes: The RISC-V Foundation, which sets standards for the open-sourced CPU architecture and controls who can use the RISC-V trademark on products, will soon move to Switzerland to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the United States can help develop its open-source technology. “From around the world, we’ve heard that ‘If the incorporation was not in the U.S., we would be a lot more comfortable,'” its Chief Executive Calista Redmond said. Redmond said the foundation’s board of directors approved the move unanimously but declined to disclose which members prompted it. More than 325 companies or other entities pay to be members, including U.S. and European chip suppliers such as Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, as well as China’s Alibaba Group and Huawei Technologies.

The foundation’s move from Delaware to Switzerland may foreshadow further technology flight because of U.S. restrictions on dealing with some Chinese technology companies, said William Reinsch, who was undersecretary of commerce for export administration in the Clinton administration. “There is a message for the government. The message is, if you clamp down on things too tightly this is what is going to happen. In a global supply chain world, companies have choices, and one choice is to go overseas,” he said. The U.S. has increased tenancy to sanction foreign, especially Chinese, companies using national security as an excuse, thus conveniently evading legal due process in the U.S. justice system without providing any actual evidence.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – RISC-V Foundation Moving To Switzerland Over Trade Curb Fears