It’s a shocking report. For decades the growth in TV subscriptions in Canada had been increasing year over year.

The resulting subscription base changed the telecom industry in a dramatic way as the major ISP’s started gobbling up TV networks for their content to maximise profits.

Now, with the onset of over-the-top services like Netflix, the entire industry is being shaken to its foundations.

Canadians are dumping their TV services at an ever increasing rate. What was once a trickle is now a veritable Niagara Falls with TV subscriptions across the country, for the first time ever, dropping, but fast.

Here’s an excerpt from a Canadian Press story by David Friend:

More Canadians scrapping cable packages or never signing up: report

TORONTO – More Canadians are choosing to cancel their cable TV and satellite packages and a new report suggests there’s no sign of the migration slowing down.

The Convergence Consulting Group says about 95,000 fewer households had a cable TV or satellite subscription at the end of 2014, compared with 2013, as the number of viewers who have decided to forgo traditional TV services grew sharply.

By those estimates, more than 21 per cent of Canadian households or 3.09 million homes did not have a cable TV or satellite TV subscription at the end of last year.

“These are very strong drops in TV,” said Brahm Eiley, president of Convergence Consulting, a Toronto-based firm that collects extensive data on the North American cable and phone industries.

“It’s a very big deal in Canada. Everybody talked about this before, but if you go back a couple years … we had been adding TV subscribers.”

Growth in the Canadian TV market was steady from 2007 to 2011, with annual subscriber additions averaging about 220,000 households, Eiley said.

But in 2013, a change in direction started to emerge, with the number of TV subscriptions falling by 13,000.

This year, Eiley expects the industry will lose another 97,000, as the shift away from paying for traditional TV services continues at a stronger clip.

From continuous growth of subscribers, to a slight drop off, and now to a cascade. the downward trend is remarkable in just a few short years. Of course it will only increase as more “over-the-top” services come online. HBO and CBS are already available as a subscription option on the States, and it’s only a matter of time until they become available here.

Of course this change in the way Canadians get their entertainment content is another way for Big Telco to make money. Adding in data caps allows them to make up revenue that they lost from cancelled or slimmed down TV subscriptions.

That’s why having Unlimited Internet is so important now. If you don’t have it, you are probably paying what you used to before cutting that cable.

We’ve been tracking this trend at Worldline for the past three years. As a result of this market demand, we are focusing on providing an optimized service for this increasingly important demographic; those who simply had enough with Big Telco and want fairly priced high speed and unlimited Internet.

This should come as no surprise: Canadians are pretty much near or at the top of the list when it comes to their telecom expenses.

According to a report issued Monday by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), an Ottawa-based consumer advocacy group, Canadians are spending between $100 and $212 a month per household on communications services.

What do those numbers mean exactly? It means Canadian Internet and Phone providers, compared to other country’s providers, are taking advantage of their customers. What’s worse, as Canadians increasingly consider their communications services not just a luxury, but rather a necessity, the poorest are taking the biggest hit.

Low-income households account for between 8 and 15 per cent of the population and an average of 7.6 per cent of their total annual expenditures is going to communications.

That exceeds what they are spending on other necessities like clothing, health-care and education. As a result, they are making cuts in other areas, such as food.

“They are making cuts in other areas, such as food”

This is upsetting to say the least. It’s also frustrating because most of these people don’t know that have an opportunity to save a serious amount on their telecom expenses, simply by changing providers.

Big Telco have a near monopoly on the marketplace due to their aggressive marketing campaigns. They are everywhere, and as a result of this carpet-bombing strategy their captive marketplace is repeatedly told, “you have no place else to go.”

Fortunately, due an improved educated consumer class, increasingly this messaging is falling on deaf ears as smaller ISP’s, like Worldline, are encroaching on their market share.

John Stix, the president of Fibernetics, Worldline’s parent company said,

“There is a clear market trend that we have noticed over the past two years. Our customer base has dramatically increased and that is a simple result of letting more Canadians know, when it comes to Big Telco, they don’t have to take it anymore.”

“Providing a fairly priced, high-quality service is all that Canadians are asking for. Ours is a simple business model: Be nice, be fair, be open and honest and new customers will come. Then, once they are onboard provide awesome customer care to ensure they stay with us forever.”

PIAC suggests that the government and regulatory decision-makers should get involved, and they lay out a five point regulatory program that would change the course of Canadian telecom. Interesting suggestions, however they would take years to implement.

In the interim there is a more market-driven solution, and that is allowing Worldline and other companies like it into more markets and to allow them to let even more Canadians know just how much they can save, simply by changing providers.

Read the whole report here, however if you are looking for a quicker solution to your high telecom bills, give Worldline a call at 1-855-299-0025, or check out what Worldline services you qualify for and see just how much you can save.

There are options out there and it’s great more Canadians than ever are finding them, but clearly more need to be aware that they can switch and save.

Since John Stix introduced the “I’m in!” culture initiative to Worldline less than a year ago, we’ve seen the company completely change, and for the better. It’s impossible to understate just how dramatic the difference in us from then to now.

Every facet of the business, the level of service, sales and the overall feeling of a shared mission, has put Worldline on a great path. One where we are focused on providing the best service from a Canadian telecom to our customers, period.

It all comes from these core values that we try to live up to every day:

Innovation – disrupting and challenging the status quo while having an entrepreneurial spirit by taking risks and dreaming big.

Accountability – taking responsibility for our own actions while understanding the impact on the organization.

Just do it and find the solution – taking initiative with a game plan for solutions.

Trust – building trust through transparency and open, honest communications.

Teamwork – working well with others while respecting values and differences.

Happiness – honouring satisfaction and well-being 🙂

It’s a simple formula to transform a company, and it’s working awesomely. John has been taking his corporate culture philosophy on the road ever since and this week he’s in Fredericton at the East Coast Startup Week, sharing his experience as an entrepreneur and as a C-level executive who changed his company’s course mid-stream and for the better.

This event is over. We will be posting the complete video as soon as possible.