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.