Pace Of Cord Cutting Continues To Quicken
from the ramping-up dept
While we've discussed cord cutting before, it seems like the entertainment industry has been slow to respond to it. It was only recently that Nielson seemed to acknowledge its occurrence, for instance, and even once television stations faced the facts and attempted to embrace internet streaming, they did so with the kind of guile and tact you'd expect out of a drunken giraffe. Lots of time delays, restrictions, and barriers to entry that will turn away the kind of person who is likely a cord-cutter. In other words, they're doing it wrong.
And they had better start learning to do it right, because the pace of cord cutting is ramping up. This from Moffett Research's Craig Moffett, former offerer of terrible broadband infrastructure advice and someone who previously indicated that cord cutters were "poor nobodies."
Moffett Research founder and analyst Craig Moffett said mid-day Tuesday that evidence of cord cutting has become more apparent in the latest set of figures...For the second quarter, publicly traded pay TV companies recorded a combined video subscriber decline of 380,000, "about the same as last year," Moffett said. "Household formation, however, was better than a year ago, meaning that the change in pay TV penetration was worse."In other words, the pool of potential customers has risen with no correlative rise in subscribers. That's an indication that more households are foregoing cable television entirely and, what with the ever-growing interest in entertainment from the public, that had better represent a huge concern for the industry. Television providers have done a horrible job of making their content available in the way customers want it, when the customers want it, and they result has been a declining subscriber base.
What's more, the crowning jewel that keeps much of that pay-TV revenue coming in has been live sports entertainment and if you look at the flagship station for that kind of thing, ESPN, the ratings hits have been massive. Couple that with a clearly stated goal by Google and others to expand sports streaming over the internet and you have a recipe for the decimation of cable TV.
All this, rather than giving customers what they want, how they want it, and when they want it -- and, hey, welcome to the reality party, Craig! Why don't you stick around awhile this time?
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Filed Under: broadband, cable, cord cutters, cord cutting, craig moffet, tv
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Hell hulu launched in japan recently and almost every gaijin(foreigner) i know has it now. Although there is room with improvement( subtitles for non-english for one).
In Aus i was paying a ton for cable, here i get hulu for Au $5.
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On top of that, even if I pay, I can't predict how many or which episodes are even available for a given show. Can I get previous seasons? Maybe. Can I get all the episodes from this season? Maybe. Will I get the most recent episode the same week it's on TV? Maybe. Screw that.
They're another example of not buying in to streaming and giving subscribers what they want.
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I originally went to pay tv to get away from the commercials and ads along with better programming. All of that went south. When it finally hit me that all I was using pay tv for was back ground noise and 4 or 5 shows a month at best I was interested in a month, it was no longer worth paying for. I can get background noise out of a radio at no cost.
Paying the high prices of today, getting constant reruns, poor programming choices of shows, along with the ads is not a formula that will ever bring me back. I can live without their services and have for considerable time now. When the numbers start stacking up that other people feel the same way, I some how doubt that pay tv will survive without changes over the long haul.
What pay tv has forgotten is that their material is not as valuable as they think it is worth. There's been a continual long term recession going on and guess what is the first thing that leaves when it comes down to what to cut to make ends meet?
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Someday, all the sports-lovin' folk will figure out how to stream their favorite sports directly from the internet onto their TV and then realize how much money they could be saving without that other box in the room.
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But it's basically a viral process. An idea spreads from one person to 2 or 3 friends. Each of them spreads it to another 2 or 3 people. They each spread it to another 2 or 3 people, and so on. Eventually it reaches critical mass and it's spreading to 2 or 3 thousand people at a time and then 20 or 30 thousand.
By the time the legacy players realize what's going on a single snowflake has turned into an avalanche that buries their entire business model.
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I immediately resubscribed to Netflix streaming and for the next couple of months I did that while keeping cable TV. But, as I watched more and more Netflix I watched less and less cable TV. So, beginning of this year, I upgraded my internet speed (30/5) and canceled cable TV and bought a Mohu Leaf indoor antennae for broadcast channels. Shaved over $100 off my cable bill each month and I don't miss it. At all.
I'm one person but my story isn't unique. Every time a new article comes out about cord cutting, this story is often repeated several times in the comments.
Cord cutting is real. Cord nevers are just as real. The entertainment, cable and satellite companies better learn this lesson.
RIGHT NOW.
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Big league sports may be collateral damage. Cable and sports are locked in a deadly embrace. As cable has lost young viewers so have major league sports.
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Re: Re: spot on, fog
wife and i are medium sports fans, for a variety of sports, from nfl, college football, gymnastics, track and field, volleyball, tennis, etc...
that has been the only thing that tied us to our dish network; but service has gotten crappy, and we've gotten to the point where mostly-shit teevee is not 'worth it'...
even though they rig their stupid bundles such that we won't save a lot, that is almost beside the point... they pissed me off a long time ago, but she has probably gotten even more pissed off than me in trying to deal with them recently...
so, we got an antenna, we got hulu+, and we are waving bye-bye to dish/cable/etc...
couldn't happen to a nice bunch of blood-sucking parasites...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: Re: I can see it now
Talk about the potential for serious disruption.
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From the deadspin link on ESPN's ratings hit
That made me lookup "Operating Income". Ended up on a wiki page on "Earnings before interest and taxes".
In accounting and finance, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), is a measure of a firm's profit that excludes interest and income tax expenses
When you consider the 45% pre-tax figure of their profits is from a "diversified multinational mass media corporation" that has subsidiaries such as ABC, ESPN, A+E, and some movie studios, there's only one word: Yikes!
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My retired parents find computers awkward. For them cable TV is easier to use, even though the cable company can't seem to get them anything but a low-def converter that outputs on channel 3.
I pretty much assumed that they were the only kind of person still relying on cable TV. Along with a whole bunch of people that are locked into a contract, or that just haven't bother to cancel cable service. Much like those people still renting a phone from the phone company.
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There are also side-effects to cutting the cord. I noticed during the last presidential election that my coworkers were all complaining about all the political ads and I could honestly say I hadn't seen one of them. To a certain degree, I am more free without cable. Free of the brainwashing associated with the main stream media and a constant bombardment of advertising.
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Assuming that they work as advertised, I don't see why such streaming boxes wouldn't work for your parents. If the interface is similar, the question of whether it connects to a cable or the internet is irrelevant. If all that stops them from cutting is that they don't want to use a PC, the cable companies are doomed.
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Response to: DB on Aug 7th, 2013 @ 9:56pm
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Re: Response to: DB on Aug 7th, 2013 @ 9:56pm
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Hey you kids, get off my lawn!
Why would anyone need electricity in their home? I lived my life just fine without it!
Why would anyone need a telephone? Soon, nobody will be able to write letter!
Why would anyone need a radio? Before you know it everyone will be too stoopid to read a newspaper!
Why would anyone need a television? The radio is perfectly fine thank you!
Why would anyone need cable TV? My TV gets free programming out of the air just fine.
Why would anyone want a calculator? Soon people won't be able to do basic arithmetic anymore.
Why would anyone want a computer in their home? What possible use could it be?
Why would anyone want a digital watch? My mechanical watch works just fine. I get it cleaned every once in awhile. Keep it wound up. Reset it to the correct time from time to time. And it works fine.
You kept explaining this spreadsheet thingy to me, and I looked at it; but I cannot possibly see how anyone could find that useful? I've got a perfectly good calculator.
Why would anyone want this gooey thing on their screen? I can read the green text on my monitor just fine.
Why would anyone want this intarweb thingy? My computer has always worked just fine without it. I just click my moose on whatever icon I want to launch.
Why would anyone want internet TV? My cable TV works just fine.
Hey you kids - get off my lawn!
Some people, not all, do this over a lifetime. They now use what they once complained about. They just cannot embrace change.
Many people as they age stop embracing change and want things to stay the same forever. These people are always in a minority and their numbers go down by attrition.
So the number of older people who cannot use current tech will go down by attrition. They are not the ones I want to spend time trying to convince to see the benefits of the new tech. If they don't want it, I let them be and move on. I do not need to evangelize them.
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Re: Hey you kids, get off my lawn!
"Why would anyone want the internet streamed into their head? LCD screens are fine!"
I'm already getting that way with Google Glass
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I could do the NHL OK, but I would need to lie about where I live and stream through a VPN service ($10/month).
And many of the football games are on ESPN3, but Time Warner won't pay ESPN so I can't get those without someone else's password or something. And other games aren't on at all.
And even so, except for ESPN, all the other games (CBS, NBC, etc.) are live only.
So, if you like sports and work for a living, you are pretty much tied to cable/satellite.
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There is a way..
Look up CABLE CARD..
AND you can buy your own box..or even use a computer..
Something to KNOW.
CABLE cant charge you a fee for the BOX..unless you can BUY YOUR OWN.
MOSt companies will send you a CARD to use your OWN box. but they change encryption and you might have to buy a NEW box.
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And, oh yeah, the Cable industry is right now fighting to get the CableCard requirements (they don't offer them out of the goodness of their hearts) removed.
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The good news is that Tim is smarter and nobler than everybody (individually and collectively) in the television/entertainment industry. The solution is actually perfectly simple: the only concern is customers and what they want. The rest of the situation - e.g., all the other parties involved in actually doing that - is not real and can be safely ignored; it is not part of the "reality party."
I don't really know what it's like being the smartest guy in the room every time I step into one. Haven't had that experience. It must be kind of awesome, but also frustrating knowing that everyone you meet is orders of magnitude stupider than you are, and yet they are in charge and you aren't (has to be corruption, systemic incompetence, etc. - no other reasonable explanation).
When the job offers start pouring in for Tim, I'm sure he'll have Disney/ABC/etc. turned around in a week or two, and then he can go on to save the recorded music industry also.
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Yes! You FINALLY got the point of all these articles I write. It's a banner day for you, sir, now that you know all of this actually just says "I'm smarter than fucking everyone, and I have a big dong too!"
Kudos to you sir. You've reached the second level of Geignerology. To get to level three, however, requires a $1000 donation for some educational material and an auditing of your go fuck yourself....
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That's not really such a challenge, is it?
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But this is correct. It's called the "free market."
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to much to cover
2. Cable came along and promised alot, and delivered little. It was PAYING for Tv channels..more TV channels, and (generally) a better picture.
3. SAt came around and sent signals to CABLE stations as well as adding THEIR OWN system, and we PAID MORE..
So, we started free, and had a few LOCAL stations, from 4-20.
went to 50 and paid for it..
WENT to 200 and WE PAY MORE for what we dont watch..(most people dont watch more then 20 select channels..)
REALISM:
TV was free, and you had local news..CABLE/SAT isnt.
Can you afford $50-100 per month for 75% of the channels you dont watch?
Figure 100 channels(BASIC CABLE), and you watch 20.. and pay $50..thats about $0.50 per channel.. isnt $10 a better price for 20 channels?
IF the Channels REALLY wanted you to watch TV..
How many Antennas around the country would they NEED?(this isnt cheap) 10,000? 5,000?..(only good for about 40 miles)
WOULDNT a SAT dish be a Cheap way to have Full nation wide coverage?
since SAT is so cheap to compare, WHY AINT IT FREE??
NOW look at the net..
HOW many service want to CHARGE YOU to watch SHOWs you would like to watch? MOSt of them. If you can find the channels online, they want you to jump hoops and PAY them..
HIGH speed services have CAPS...Watching many movies is going to Kill you Bank book.
Internet could be used to send Movies to anyone wishing to watch. and could be monitored BETTER then ANY rating system. you are not Blindly broadcasting shows, as with antenna or Sat.
The problem is BANDWIDTH.
Bandwidth enough to cover you WATCHING TV, and your KIDS playing games at the SAME TIME. anyone for a MAJOR overhaul of the WHOLe internet..AGAIN??
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And it still is, only it's digital and you can get the same channels you used to, plus a couple more. By antenna.
2. Cable came along and promised alot, and delivered little. It was PAYING for Tv channels..more TV channels, and (generally) a better picture.
Yes, and that's still available. I'm sure that you could get some contrarians around here to complain that the old UHF stations were better than what you can get on basic cable today (because hating the cable companies is fashionable), but that's objectively not true.
3. SAt came around and sent signals to CABLE stations as well as adding THEIR OWN system, and we PAID MORE..
Consumer satellite television became economically viable as Hughes had a production line that could churn out fairly capable satellite buses on a regular basis, but didn't always have a payload to go on them when the bus was ready and tested. So satellite TV became a way to "soak up" the "extra" buses. But you were basically looking at a very small economy of scale subsidized by the government, who were buying many of the rest of the payloads.
So, we started free, and had a few LOCAL stations, from 4-20.
Still got it.
went to 50 and paid for it..
WENT to 200 and WE PAY MORE for what we dont watch..(most people dont watch more then 20 select channels..)
No, but each person watches 20 different channels, and so the more popular ones subsidize some of the little ones. This is why "a-la carte TV" sounds so great in theory and is hard to implement in practice. Perhaps of the 20 channels you desperately want, 10 of them aren't economically viable unless packaged with other channels you're not watching. So you can cheapen up your cable package and lose 10 of the channels that made you want cable in the first place.
REALISM:
TV was free, and you had local news
Still is.
..CABLE/SAT isnt.
Never was, still isn't, not sure what you're complaining about.
Can you afford $50-100 per month for 75% of the channels you dont watch?
Yes, and a lot of people do - that's why cable and satellite TV stay in business. The 75% of the channels I don't watch are watched by somebody else. I am subsidizing some of the not-so-viable channels I don't watch by paying for channels I do, and other people are subsidizing some of the not-so-viable channels I do watch by paying for other channels I don't.
Figure 100 channels(BASIC CABLE), and you watch 20.. and pay $50..thats about $0.50 per channel.. isnt $10 a better price for 20 channels?
Not how it works in reality. It's not 50 cents per channel. The reality is more like that 10 of the ones you watch are probably $4.00 each, and so you could save $10 by losing 90 of the 100 channels you get.
IF the Channels REALLY wanted you to watch TV..
How many Antennas around the country would they NEED?(this isnt cheap) 10,000? 5,000?..(only good for about 40 miles)
Well, lots, but they already exist...that's where your digital over-the-air TV comes from.
WOULDNT a SAT dish be a Cheap way to have Full nation wide coverage?
I'm not sure if you understand this, but satellite dishes require satellites...in orbit...in space. The dishes (which, yes, are cheap) aren't talking to each other directly. Satellites are just about one of the most expensive things to produce and maintain that you can possibly imagine.
since SAT is so cheap to compare, WHY AINT IT FREE??
As I said, satellites are extraordinarily expensive to build, launch, and maintain. Consumer satellite TV exists largely because of this very strange micro-economy-of-scale created almost accidentally because Hughes' satellite bus production capability outstripped the ability of the government's ability to produce, pay for, and launch payloads.
HOW many service want to CHARGE YOU to watch SHOWs you would like to watch? MOSt of them. If you can find the channels online, they want you to jump hoops and PAY them..
HIGH speed services have CAPS...Watching many movies is going to Kill you Bank book.
Yes, uh, people do generally want you to pay them for expensive things that you get from them.
Internet could be used to send Movies to anyone wishing to watch. and could be monitored BETTER then ANY rating system. you are not Blindly broadcasting shows, as with antenna or Sat.
Statistically, there comes a point of strong diminishing returns with the ability to monitor end users once you have enough of them. It's about statistical sampling and significance.
The problem is BANDWIDTH.
Bandwidth enough to cover you WATCHING TV, and your KIDS playing games at the SAME TIME. anyone for a MAJOR overhaul of the WHOLe internet..AGAIN??
Yes, and the Internet is not a broadcast medium (especially with the failure of multicast routing and protocols). So, broadcasting shows to end-users doesn't scale like true broadcast technologies (e.g., antennas and satellites, which are just another kind of antenna). Once you set up a broadcast antenna, you can add receivers without adding more broadcast capacity. Not so with the Internet.
So, the challenges on the Internet are different - not necessarily fewer. I don't understand why everyone expects things to get magically cheaper "because the Internet."
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How about because prices are artificially inflated "because one sided technology-driven monopolies."
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Yes, launching satellites is really difficult and expensive and only because DirecTV has so many subscribers on 2-year contracts would they even attempt to launch new satellites.
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You can either try to understand why people expect things to get cheaper and address the issues, or you can not and then complain when people don't continue throwing money at an inferior product. Only one of these solutions will have a future, I'll leave you to guess which.
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Or you can not understand the issues at all (let alone addressing them) and start a blog making fun of/bitching at everyone who is not solving problems you do not understand fast enough for you and assuming the only possible reasons are that they are dumb and/or corrupt.
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It doesn't matter what your reasons are. If people don't find your product valuable enough to pay what you demand, they'll find other ways to get said product.
Channels themselves are an outdated concept, necessitated by the technology when they first appeared. People dislike paying for channels full of 90% crap, re-runs and filler to get the shows they want almost as much as they dislike paying for hundreds of channels they never watch.
Filtering out the dissenting opinions just because you don't like the status quo being changed doesn't affect the fact that people are moving away from that outdated concept - whether you agree with their reasoning or not. Ignoring this and pretending that high priced bundling has to happen will only put you in the same position as the idiots in the music industry who whined about piracy, not realising that unbundling was their biggest threat.
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This right here.
Every company that has ever been disrupted in their chosen business model has done everything in their power to stop that disruption, including buying more laws or through stupid lawsuits. The spend so much money and effort fighting to retain their power, when they should be spending money and effort ensuring they remain relevant at all.
They insist on giving all kinds of excuses why something can't be done instead of trying to figure out how to do it. And along the way they totally miss a very important point. Consumers don't care about your excuses.
Adapt or die.
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And the harder they litigate instead of innovate, the more likely they get replaced.
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It can't possibly be the people who just acknowledged it 5 minutes ago after spending the same period of time making up fairy tales to explain how nothing had changed.
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It has the ability to be at a much cheaper cost than cable, that is why people expect it to be cheaper.
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No, but each person watches 20 different channels, and so the more popular ones subsidize some of the little ones. This is why "a-la carte TV" sounds so great in theory and is hard to implement in practice. Perhaps of the 20 channels you desperately want, 10 of them aren't economically viable unless packaged with other channels you're not watching. So you can cheapen up your cable package and lose 10 of the channels that made you want cable in the first place.
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NOT REALLY..The most expensive channel is SPORTS..ESPN. 1 channel is $4..and it used to be an EXTRA..
the list has been posted here..and MOST of the channels cable gets are less then $0.50 each..(what they pay for them)
OLD SCHOOL TV, the adverts paid for the programming..
NEW SCHOOL, cable pays for the programming, THEn the customer pays CABLE/SAT.
My question is IF' they want OUR BUSINESS why are we paying them for it.
======================
IF the Channels REALLY wanted you to watch TV..
How many Antennas around the country would they NEED?(this isnt cheap) 10,000? 5,000?..(only good for about 40 miles)
Well, lots, but they already exist...that's where your digital over-the-air TV comes from.
NO they dont exit in the number needed to broadcast 200 channels..
======================
As I said, satellites are extraordinarily expensive to build, launch, and maintain. Consumer satellite TV exists largely because of this very strange micro-economy-of-scale created almost accidentally because Hughes' satellite bus production capability outstripped the ability of the government's ability to produce, pay for, and launch payloads.
Yes, but you should see what they pay for an Antenna on the ground..Power failures, CARS/TRUCKS run into them, storms, weather conditions change signal patterns.. and adding enough for 100-200 channels to be broadcast nation wide, it horrendous.
Look up FREE TO Air on google..There are already FREE to watch sat channels..and MORE in other countries then in USA.. takes $200-300 for a box to watch.
SAT is cheap in the long run then installing more Antenna stations to broadcast. you should look it up.
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£80 for a satellite dish including fitter.
£60 for tv card that plugs into pc or a more expensive set top box for the less tech savvy.
multiple free hd channels from then on.
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If you are one of the lucky ones who live in an area that can receive these transmissions. A byproduct of the digital switchover is that a lot of people who used to be able to get OTA television can no longer do so.
I think, primarily, because it could allow people to avoid this:
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ps..
At $100 per month? $1200 per year..
that could buy a good amount of groceries..
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Price
Reality shows featuring UFO's and Big Foot-the History Channel and it only gets worse.
Real quality stuff there-totally not worth paying out for. The cable companies only have themselves to blame, and I'm not in the mood to feel sorry for them.
TV used to be free, until the idea of 'monetizing' it came into existence.
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I can afford it...but I won't
There is very little value in cable or satellite TV. Because they've stupidly clung to the ridiculously outdated idea of "channels", we end up paying for all kinds of things we never watch. "The Jewelry Channel" (24x7 commercials for overpriced crap)? Really? You want us to PAY for that?
Once upon a time, there was history on the History Channel and science on the Learning Channel and so on; now it's 24x7 shit. And I do mean "shit": it's disgusting filth, an insult to the intelligence of anyone with a room-temperature IQ. Really? You want us to PAY for that?
And it just gets worse from there. There is no point enumerating all of it, it's been done elsewhere (including on this site) and the ignorant, stupid, lazy, worthless bags of pus who call themselves "television executives" are just not listening. They're not going to listen. They're going to whine and complain and try to get money from the feds and blame other people and do everything but look in a mirror and realize that they are failures.
But they're not getting any more of my money. On those rare occasions when I actually want to see something, I find other ways. But those are turning up less often every year -- in a few more, I doubt I'll even bother.
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They are doing it right. Every day, I see news about cable distributors and stations blacking out content which only affects customers.
This is a step in the right direction.
How? Because the more this occurs, the more customers get pissed off, and cut the cord.
When those industries, heavily reliant on cable fees, start to fade into obscurity, this allows those with better innovation to deliver content to billions of people without emptying wallets in the process.
tl;dr: out with the old, in with the new.
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I don't think the industry will simply die overnight and probably it won't die at all. But if they stepped into the next level without having to be dragged kicking and screaming they'd suffer less losses and would impose less or no damage to the public.
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Great documentary about poverty in the US.
Even though what is called poverty in the US would be viewed as middle class elsewhere, it shows some heart breaking moments.
I am lucky, I cannot be poor, I know I will not endure famine, if money is tight I know how to make my own clothes, shoes, socks, food, soap and shelter, maybe is time to pass that knowledge to others.
A lot of people can't afford to have it, others just realized it is not worth it and a lot of people found something else.
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Something special
What would it take to UPDATE tech to the point of using 2-3 fiber cables to bring...
POWER
TV, 200+ channels. and any channel from around the world.
Phone
Mini cellphone system that give ALL cellphones access as well as a Wireless phone you can use anywhere in your area.
tons of pissed off corps. and a WHOLE rebuild of the cable/phone infrastructure..
corps dont like change. and the gov is the only one that would build it.
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Fox
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Cut the cord about 5 years ago, never been happier
The last straw was when DirectTV, who I had been paying a LOT of money to, dropped G4, a channel I had watched probably more than any other at the time, didn't give a crap about what I had wanted, and wouldn't let me out of my contract without a giant fee. At least those last few months gave me time to set up/test everything while still having cable.
So, congrats, DirectTV, for driving away a potential customer (well, set of customers, as I do have a family as well) for....well, unless something changes drastically, forever.
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cheaper + easier
Neilson better figure out how to get numbers of watchers for streaming very quickly or else the only shows not cancelled are going to be ones watched by luddites and sports watchers (i.e. cable subscribers).
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Um, you can totally get that stuff, you know. It won't be in HD, but it would be watchable....I hear....
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I reserve it for the times when they absolutely won't show me something.
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No browser windows so no popups and such.
Or so I have heard....I wouldn't know...
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Good
Second, what I am desperately hoping this leads to is an ISP that is not, in any way, a content provider. I currently have no CATV nor landline, but I am still forced to use Comcast for my internet access. They literally have a monopoly where I live.
So maybe if they are weakened by cord-cutters, we will see alternatives come along to eat their proverbial breakfast.
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Who needs Pay TV?
So I didn't buy a new one, and with that, I cancelled my cable subscription. I took the money I'd saved for the TV and took my kids on vacation instead.
Today we use Netflix, Hulu, and the occasional broadcast network website to watch what ever it is we're interested in. We torrent whatever we can't find through legitimate channels. I have a pocket HDMI projector that I can hook up to my computer, my laptop, or my phone. We've done movies in the park with it by throwing a sheet over a volleyball net.
In short, I found a lot of freedom when I cut the cord. We don't watch much, but what we do watch is stuff we want to watch, when we want to watch it, and where we want to watch it.
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Worst way to give your customers options. I had a episode on my AT&T on demand but I downloaded it instead so I can have control over how I view content!
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A la carte pricing
For our Fox News viewer/commenter, the numbers are worse...at a whopping $690 million annual cost (1.47 B revenue minus 780 M profit) and the not-that-great 370 K viewers that O'Reilly pulls in, Fox News viewers would have to pay $180 a month...that's a real hit out of that Social Security check.
In summary, this system is horribly inefficient, especially in today's economy. I welcome a world where people have the choice whether to pay $30 a month to the Kardashians, $40 to ESPN for another lousy Lakers or Yankees game, $10 for Duck Dynasty, or even $25 a month for their local sports teams. The alarm bells, especially with the recent CBS/TWC spat, have got to be going off in the industry. Less crap, much less cost, much less "me-too" programming, and less going after the same small set of viewers, have to be Priority One. Obviously, huge swaths of channels will disappear, and some of your favorites will go too, but the days of the Entertainment & Sports industries vacuuming $100+ a month from 80% of the country's households are over.
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Re: A la carte pricing
Well, not mine. I sortof* cut the cord about 15 years ago, and couldn't be happier about it. If cable TV vanished completely, I wouldn't miss a thing.
* I say "sortof" because my only option for broadband internet is Comcast, and with Comcast, you pay more for internet-only service than you do for internet+basic cable service. So I get basic cable, but I haven't hooked up the converter box or TV to it.
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A La Carte
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