TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It
The TV business is having its worst year ever.
Audience ratings have collapsed: Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Citi Research.
Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, "The pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever." All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013. That doesn't sound like a huge deal but it includes internet subscribers, too.
Broadband internet was supposed to benefit from the end of cable TV, but it hasn't.
In all, about 5 million people ended their cable and broadband subs between the beginning of 2010 and the end of this year. - http://www.businessinsider.com/cord-cutters-and-the-death-of-tv-2013-11
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have you ever turned on your cable TV early in the morning; lets say 2 or 3 AM? Youd figure with a thousand channels thered be something to watch but no. What you get is mainly stations switching to those stupid infomercials.
Even during the day, it has become wasteland of constant commercials.
What few stations that had interesting programs, like the History Channel, have switched formats to UFOs, aliens, reality based crap like pawn stars, truckers and loggers.
I will watch local news and thats it. I limit my kids to no more than two hours of TV per day, which they rarely use anyways, seeing that they have the internet.
With no a la carte being offered, cable has sealed their own fate. More ominous though, watch those same companies start carving up the internet into tiers where you must now pay extra to access any news and entertainment sites which you can now get for free.
Tags
Who is online
38 visitors
We don't have cable or satellite anymore. Netflix and Amazon Prime satisfies our TV needs, except for one show on Fox. We can catch that on the computer 8 days after it airs.
I watch very little commercialized television and never listen to commercial radio. I watch Breaking Bad the Broncos games and occasionally Family Guy. At the gym while riding the bike or elliptical machine I watch Outside TV it's all mountain biking, skiing and kayaking.
I just couldn't take it anymore after watching those babbling idiots on MSNBC claim Walker was going to be recalled.
APax,
How do you get free News [and entertainment] ?
I use a satellite for tv. I have to pay $5.00 for local channels if I want MSM news.
___
The underlying issue sort of came up on the Vine with the new incorporation of MSNBC into Newsvine, with it being stated the MSN side was geared to the Milennials who do everything digitally now, but older people are still geared to TV. The shift in generational focus might have a lot to do with the downturn. Doing so much on their phones, they don't have time to watch tv.
How well does that work ? I read somewhere that you lose signal during rainy weather .
Hi Petey, I haven't ever had any interruption except with snow, but not with any amount of snow - it has to be several inches.
I like it. I had it upgraded at one point to view the HD channels. I like it as far as reception goes, but I don't like feeling ripped-off with the expense of being locked into packages [like cable].
I hardly ever watch tv and the few channels I do watch, I have the same complaints as above...it seems like a lot of money to spend and not get that much in return. But...it sure is nice to have if you want to watch a football game...especially on the 65" screen.
Oh, there is one other time I like about having the satellite [like cable, I think] are the pay-per-view movies. More expensive to watch than going to the Red Box, but cheaper than going to the Theatre -- you can watch 'New Releases' at home.
Thanks for the info Chloe . Maybe I'll look into getting the basic package which is probably about $20 / month ?
I use 'dish.' I think 100 channels was the smallest pkg., but I went with 200 to get the few channels I wanted...grrr. I don't remember what I paid for that pkg., but I think they adjust the rates all of the time.
Petey, I have sat as well. No problem with rain or snow. If snow builds up on the dish, just brush it off.
I've had both cable and sat. I prefer sat.
I didn't have a TV for years-- because I wasn't interested in all the garbage. I got one fairly recently, spent some time flipping through many channels. Good grief-- what garbage. (No wonder Congress is so dumb-- they are merely reflecting the majority of the population-- or at least the majority of TV viewers).
I never saw Ancient Aliens. However, I did spend a few minutes watching some of "The Real Housewives of ____" series...seemed very strange, IMHO.
I'm guessing the Scientology mythology won't appeal to you either . You've got a lot of company ...
I should have been clearer. I meant anyone on line can still check out the news and certain entertainment venues for free.
As for "teiring", see examples below;
Right now the cable providers charge by "bandwidth " or the amount of data you can down and upload. " Streaming media ", which requires high bandwidth is competing with cable TV. The Telco's like Verizon, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc get less profit from internet connections so they want to slice up the net and control where you can go online. The more you pay, the more you can get.
Thanks APax. I've tried to keep my own circumstances relatively simple, so I'm still learning what's up with cable and all of the isps and services. I'm in an area that frequently loses power and cell service is still patchy, so I maintained my land-line for emergencies/internet [DSL] and then the Satellite service [tho, cable is an option]. So, if I understand correctly, since I have DSL, I probably don't have enough bandwidth for streaming media?
I think I'm understanding the slicing up -- when I look at the smaller boxes above, we can currently access most all of those now with just basic internet service, yes? What they want to do is force us to pay for certain sites and search engines in addition to a charge for internet service? A bit like my noticing that the WSJ a couple years ago let us access less newsy items easily, but the more current and hot topics, we had to have a subscription to their site. My favorite saying, "It's always about the money, not the people."
I'm not sure if I'm understanding the "streaming media." For example, they mentioned internet television. So, if someone has enough bandwidth, they could watch tv on their computer? It's only the cable service that determines the bandwidth, not the service provider? Or in other words, I'm asking if all isps would allow that capability, as long as the the right signal strengths are in place? I read the Sat cos are going to get into the internet business, or already are. So with my situation, I might not have enough bandwidth coming from my dsl, but I might eventually be able to have internet from Dish, which would allow me to also use my computer for 'streaming media' and TV on my computer??