<p>Another story, this time on Yahoo Finance, about a family that dropped cable TV service (Time Warner) cold turkey, saving them $90 per month. And all they essentially had was basic service!!!</p>
<p>We’ve seen these stories before in recent months. NYTimes published one several weeks ago wherein the cable companies pooh-poohed it and, yawn that they are not worried because such ‘drop outs’ are miniscule in number. Hmmm.</p>
<p>I noticed the other day that Verizon now has a Starz Movie Channel online for 6 bucks a month. Unlimited movies that are available at anytime of the day or night. I think I’ll check it out. Let’s see if the cable companies keep fiddling while Rome burns.</p>
<p>I am about to drop cable TV service myself. I downgraded the service to basic a few months ago. Finally turned it on the other day to see what we get with basic service, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, 5 channels affiliated some types of religion, two spanish language channels. It was a bit depressing.</p>
<p>I think that the number actually cutting the cord is quite small. You can cobble together enough movies and television shows with other options like NetFlix, Hulu Plus, and iTunes but most people just want to be able to turn on their television and see content. The nerds out there (me included) can get by with free streaming options on the internet. Will the average person put up with the other stuff? Only when pushed hard enough.</p>
<p>If enough people cut the cord, then the quality of content will go down as the studios depend on revenues from cable companies to finance productions. We will see the same thing in movies and television shows that we’ve seen in the decline of music due to declining revenues to the old music business financial model. This is happening in the SciFi genre - people that watch Sci Fi are typically capable of finding the content for free which impacts network and other revenue leaving less money for production.</p>
<p>Smartphone sales seem to be booming - those are more expensive than your second-tier cable services.</p>
<p>BTW, we’ve never had cable outside a three-month trial many years ago. We just go off the antenna for the few shows my wife likes. I watch TV a few times a year - maybe for Wimbledon and the US Open semis and finals.</p>
<p>I think you’re right BCEagle91, we chord cutters are likely few in number at present. I have friends who give me some good natured sarcasm about my lack of cable. They themselves would never do it, despite that one of them has time to watch TV only one night a week [Sunday, HBO]. He doesn’t even watch the Evening News.</p>
<p>Yes, the business model for broadcast TV appears to be changing. Ever notice how the commerical breaks seem to be endless lately? The seem to be at least 3 or almost four minutes long at certain periods during the prime time viewing block. Your analogy to the music industry is interesting. I think the problem with Cable TV, record companies and newspapers for that matter, is that they are trying to avoid a restructuring of executive compensation like the plague. They are slow to learn that you can’t have two-dozen people in the office suite making $20 million a year when profits are flat or diminishing. Economies and markets have changed. And TV’s attempts at ‘synergy’ are questionable. Notice how CBS 60 Minutes or CBS Sunday Morning does a feature on a CBS-owned property or CBS-related individual more and more frequently these days? They think that doing a disclaimer at the start of the feature makes it easier for the viewer to swallow or ignore the ethical conflict.</p>
<p>The newspapers have a failing model and executive compensation isn’t much of an issue there. Google and Craigslist have taken away their ad revenue and they are being forced to give away their content for near free. There are those that subscribe to the paper version that are subsidizing those with free access.</p>
<p>The music business lost the benefit of album sales - you pay for an album for one or two good songs. iTunes and others took that away. Downloading of songs (the RIAA has gone after college students in the past but it hasn’t been effective. I’d guess that you can get any song or movie that you want at many college dorms. A friend’s son at Cornell told me that his son had been watching movies that they hadn’t purchased and I suggested that he get a Netflix subscription for his family so that his son could download movies or get DVDs legally.</p>
<p>A lot of this is due to the deflationary effects of technology. I don’t have a solution except that people should pay for content if they expect content in the future. At least enough need to pay something so that it can be produced.</p>
<p>I’m working on a book and one of the things that I worry about is that someone just scans it into a PDF file and puts it on the internet. Not a lot that I could do to stop that. The only way to continue revenues would be to update it frequently but then it would force me into an EBook model.</p>
<p>We’ve only had basic cable @ about $15 a month or less since we moved into this house when the kids were toddlers. We toy with the idea of cutting it off as well and just sticking with the internet. I’d say we watch a few show/month & S can get most of them via the internet at no charge.</p>
<p>We’ve had DirecTV for > 15 yrs. There was no cable available (unless we wanted to pay $KK to have it installed down our street. It came many years later, but by that time, we weren’t interested. In addition, we could only receive one local channel with any regularity and then with not very good reception. We’ve been happy with it. Never were happy with cable when we have had it in the past.</p>
<p>My perspective is that people in general will gravitate toward wanting content when they want it. Already TIVO and others have made it unecessary to watch a TV show at a specific time. I predict cable’s days are numbered as other machines come into market that will agregate streaming internet content and make it as easy as pushing a button on a remote.There were a couple of these at CES. You don’t need cable for your phone and you don’t need cable anymore for your internet. The only thing I wonder about is sports. Sports are so in “time” that I wonder how sports will be impacted and adjust.</p>
<p>The legal outlets for content are still under the thumb of the content producers and the content producers are watching the online stuff closely. If it threatens revenue from cable, then the costs for online streaming will either go up or go out of business.</p>
<p>Machines that aggregate content are fine but they have to aggregate it from somewhere. If they aggregate it from Cable, then Cable and the content producers get paid. The services like Hulu work very hard so that you can’t take their content to do with it what you will. There are places out there where you can get streaming stuff and download stuff for free but you’d be violating IP protections.</p>
<p>This is why Google TV has been a flop. The content owners don’t want you using something like Google TV. iTunes is doing better because they charge for content and pay the producers.</p>
<p>The cost model is yet to be imagined, but Netflix is heading down that path and companies like Roku impressed me. I think there are others but this got the wheels turning in my brain and I guess that is what is important.</p>
<p>Netflix is, as is Hulu Plus but they can do this because they are small fry at this time. If they get larger, expect the content companies to try to wring more money out of them in the future.</p>
<p>I find it pretty easy - just don’t get cable. There are always other things to do. Or watch.</p>
<p>Netflix has a Starz movie channel on it too… </p>
<p>I just called my cable company and renegotiated my bill from 138 to 110 a month for cable and internet. Still seems like a lot to me but at least it helped. I could have gotten it down to a little under 100 by giving up a few channels but we <em>had</em> to keep the extra sports channel package. The lady was very nice and added some extra discounts to my account for me.</p>
<p>I very rarely watch tv - Usually just for sports to be honest… During baseball season and football season my HD channels come in handy. I have a few tv shows that I like however i usually watch tv shows streaming online or through my netflix… or I just buy them on dvd. Usually it’s my boyfriend who can be found on my couch learning something by watching discovery, history, travel, science, food network, etc. If not for him I’d probably bump it down to whatever the bare minimum was where I still had all of my sports channels. Actually, I wonder how much that would cost. I should bill him for the difference, lol!</p>
<p>With the change to digital - many will not need “basic” cable for basic channels. It used to be that cable systems, improved the signals. That is no longer the case. Cable actually denegrates the clean, digital signal. You can get High Definition channels, free, over the air. For most this would be ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CW, MyNetwork, PBS …and their multi channels in your market. YOu will need an antenna - not a square one - but good old fashioned rabbit ears, this is usually a circle with two “sticks” - you need the circle and the “ears” to get both UHF and VHF stations. Unfortunately, many digital televisions were sold with only one type of antenna - the UHF square kind. This will not pick up VHF channels. You can also put this antenna near a window, or in the attic. Best way, spend a few hundred dollars and put up an outside antenna. One more thing - before you buy/ or upgrade for the digital box for HD - make sure your cable company doesn’t offer the local channels in HD for free, in some random tier. You can just plug in your cable to your new TV and get HD channels, you may not get the cable channels in HD, like ESPN … but for some second TV’s in bedrooms, basements, kitchens, the main channels are plenty.</p>
<p>Yep and add to that streaming what we really want to watch through our computer. Today I wanted to watch the Bears/Packers but my basic cable package…nope didn’t have it. So…streamed it through the computer and watched it on our nice big flatscreen tv.</p>
<p>A detailed article on what I’ve been saying - if people kill cable revenue in big numbers, the business model changes and the online providers will have to charge or charge more.</p>