http://www.businessinsider.com/cord-cutters-and-the-death-of-tv-2013-11
I'm not sure how the UK stacks up against the US, but in my household we cut all cable/sat subs and made the most of the free/(licence fee) services. a good 50% of the viewing comes via the web now. 40% more is recorded and watched later.
Same here. A few years ago I dropped cable TV, had a digital antenna installed, plus a dvr, Roku box and Amazon Prime videos and I never miss cable.
Now other people in my neighborhood are ditching cable TV too. If cable would go to an ala carte channel system it might compete but even then only with a DVR. Many more of my neighbors would dump cable except for ESPN. As long as that is on cable they will stick, but at some point ESPN is going to rethink its distribution model.
My other half subscribes to satellite which I barely watch, I mainly use netflix, youtube and iplayer. She does watch some shows on there but I don't think it's value for money.
There's cartoon channels on satellite for my 2 year old daughter but she knows she can watch 'a movie' whenever she likes, which is basically netflix that has all the cartoons that satellite has.
I see another trend buried in this one; the decline of sports.
This is related. How do we get our news and Yahoo is betting that it will increasingly be on a mobile device and not a TV set. Hence they are hiring big names like Katie Couric to anchor that content.
http://www.appy-geek.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=1&articleid=15839681
>Katie Couric
I saw that and my immediate thought was "Katie has been reading the reports." I'm not sure if it's a good move on Yahoo's part, ROI-wise, but at least they're making some effort to bridge the trend.
Quote from: rcjordan on November 24, 2013, 09:03:37 PM
I see another trend buried in this one; the decline of sports.
Yep, but it was interesting they didn't mention the NFL.
Surprised about the decline of broadband, but I guess I shouldn't be with the proliferation of mobile broadband.
>the NFL
The NFL is, by far, the best walled garden in sports. That said, they know that the good ol' new-eyeball delivery system of TV is slipping away and have (I believe) purposely let one streaming loophole for the US market go unplugged (via a 'free NFL' Netherlands proxy deal). But as for their previous holy/worshiped status with young men, you only have to watch the social networks to see that geekdom is still in ascendancy and the old sporting ways are dying.
They have a shitload of problems coming with the concussion issue. Also their non-profit status is being pointed to as big-business bullshit.
Damn! Everyone cutting cords and all we want in our neighborhood is to finally get some fricken cords! My backyard neighbor reminds me that he raised two girls in the days before we got phones (we got phones in in 1993 when his girls were in their early teens). If we could just get *wired* internet, everyone here would be elated.
Quote from: rcjordan on November 26, 2013, 06:36:16 PM
They have a shitload of problems coming with the concussion issue.
My father was a college coach, athletic director and football player. He used to always point out that boxing champions for most of the 20th century were from some minority that were often blocked from other options - Jews and Irish then Italians then African-Americans and these days a lot of Hispanics. His point being that you don't have a large pool of affluent people wanting to get pounded in the head in order to ahead. That problem is soon to face football too I think.
What's this have to do with anything? I think football has already lost the liberal affluent in much of the country - their kids play soccer (aka "football"). I think you're going to see this propagate down the socioeconomic ladder and across the political spectrum. A lot of football players and coaches say they don't want their kids playing football. And just when it looked like it was dying down after the legal settlement, Tony Dorsett appeared in an interview and though short, I found it moving and shocking - huge sections of his memory gone, explosive mood swings, suicidal depression, yelling at his family for no reason. I can't imagine watching that and encouraging my son to go out and play football.
>A lot of football players and coaches say they don't want their kids playing football.
This is still somewhat on-topic because I think it's been the rise of the internet as a true force in *independent* media that has kept the public appraised of the issue. Otherwise, it'd been buried --like boxing. Or that Ohio scandal. ( http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/01/2013165522610854.html )
But, whatever the method, parents are on top of this one. My son-in-law, who is a certifiably insane sports nut, has said my 7yr old grandson can do wrestling, track, baseball but NO football. When he mentioned that in a conversation, my thought was "NFL, put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye." Without the highschool/college feed the NFL is toast.
Also NASCAR is already suffering from the lack of youth being drawn to it by TV.
>>This is still somewhat on-topic because
Right... meant to add - I personally do not even HAVE tv reception. I get no information through television. It's internet and radio. The Tony Dorsett interview I saw was on some website.
Now Tom's Guide has an guide to cutting the cord. Other tech bloggers sure to follow.
http://www.news-republic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=1&articleid=16087187
Tom's late to the party.
http://www.reddit.com/r/cordcutters
I love this. The cable people have been screwing people for TOO LONG with ridiculous pricing schemes.
I could get pretty much anything I want to watch on my TV with a Roku plus Plex.
https://plex.tv/
What do you use plex to do, LM?
Amy and I had lunch a few days ago with 2 other couples. No one at the table had cable any more. Probably a first.
I hear some people just use torrents to get any movie or tv show they want at blu ray quality, sometimes before it even airs.
Yeah, I think this is the real reason for the push against net-neutrality.
>What do you use plex to do, LM?
Plex is a server that can stream from a PC to any device in the house -- tablet, smart phone, Roku, & other PCs. There are a bunch of plugins that make it able to access shows that aren't available via regular channels on Roku, for instance I like watching the Daily Show and new shows aren't availible for Roku, but they are for the PC. With the Plex I can stream the show from my PC to my TV via the Roku. Plex also lets you stream any media you have on your harddrive. There is a version for all the major operating systems, including Linux.
>that aren't available via regular channels on Roku
That's what I figured. My son-in-law has been on it probably since its earliest days. I see him slowly moving away from it as Apple TV, Chromecast, and the like have become so mainstream.
note time warp:
Renewed emphasis on buried trends. This isn't just a cordcutting issue. We've noted major shifts in consumption habits among ages 20-30-somethings and less interest in sports is one of them.
>>I see another trend buried in this one; the decline of sports.
>Yep, but it was interesting they didn't mention the NFL.
ESPN has lost 7 percent of its subscription base since its peak of about 100 million homes in 2011. And the trend is accelerating: 3.2 million subscribers have left since May 2014.
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/19/424447488/once-immune-to-cord-cutting-king-of-live-sports-finds-throne-shaken
I only see ESPN in bars and food joints, but every time I see it, it just has a bunch of guys in really bad suits sitting around talking pre-game or post-game gossip like a bunch of old hens. That's all I ever see and I think "People pay to watch this?"
I'm pretty content to see the cable guys become dumb pipes for delivering Internet.
>sports
Total waste of bandwidth
<tick-tock> update:
QuoteDish said it lost about 143,0000 net pay-TV subscribers in the quarter, compared with a loss of 23,000 a year earlier. Analysts had estimated a loss of 72,000 subscribers
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dish-network-results-idUSKBN17X1HM
I heard on NPR radio yesterday that the reason for the big firings of on air talent at ESPN was because of cable cutters. The whole industry is feeling the pinch they thought they could ignore.
<tick tock>
>ESPN has lost 7 percent of its subscription base since its peak of about 100 million homes in 2011. And the trend is accelerating: 3.2 million subscribers have left since May 2014.
ESPN will lay off more than 100 staffers after Thanksgiving
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/espn-will-lay-off-more-than-100-staffers.html