My household just cancelled our basic satellite service last week because of AppleTV+iTunes+Netflix.<p>Our reasoning was this: Netflix lets us have the "background noise" programs that we don't really care about for $8/mo and it has a big enough catalog that it's worth it. We can purchase everything else from iTunes and at our rate of "new show consumption", the $60/mo is better spent being put towards iTunes purchases where it's ad-free, on demand, and able to be moved to devices. For TV shows, that's about 15-20 episodes a month <i>purchased</i> without affecting our previous budget. In practice, we don't watch half that many new shows so we'll be saving around $30/month and building a catalog of content that we semi-own where the value increases the longer we use it. Cable/Sat services don't build on themselves like that. Plus, the AppleTV runs at 6 watts where the satellite receiver ran at 10x that, we might even see a lower electric bill.<p>Households that live for watching TV aren't going to be swayed that easily, but they're easily spending twice as much too.
<p><pre><code> The weak economy is hitting Americans where they spend a lot of their free time: at the TV set.
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While the economy might be the trigger that drives people over the edge to unsubscribe, I actually believe that a large number of them was disenfranchised with TV programming before that. When it comes to entertainment, we have exactly three categories: reality TV, sports events, and series that are designed to be huge blockbusters.<p>Personally, my biggest beef with this is the series part (I don't watch reality TV or sports at all), because we're only ever seeing the most dumbed-down shit that is designed from the ground up for marketability. Only rarely does that procedure produce a great show, and when it does, it's by pure accident. As a result, we get fiction programming where Warehouse 13 is considered "edgy sci-fi TV", when it fact it is neither edgy nor scifi at all.
If cable networks and MSOs were smart, they'd start developing their own "Netflix" style operation. Build MSO-specific web apps that make it easy to do two things: 1.) Watch live network streams as if I had a box hooked up to my TV and 2.) Give users access to a VOD library (just like Netflix) for each network. There are PLENTY of downsides but unfortunately, these companies need to realize that the old model doesn't work and is only going to continue to die off. Want to keep your subscribers? Move to the web. Now. Worry about the details later.
Work in office during day, and work on personal projects during evenings.<p>Do not have TV for like.... a lot of years.<p>Found discount movie theater nearby and go there over weekends sometimes with my wife (she also totally busy during week).<p>You know what? When you go to movie theater just a few times per month - you really enjoy the show! And nice restaurant after is a great culmination =) Treat yourself, not bloat!
Television content distribution has historically been push model marketing.<p>One problem was that nobody ever really "knew" with any measurable degree of accuracy how many people were actually watching any given show. Nielsen ratings (and I actually received $5 and the survey in the mail 10 years ago, when I was a televisionless University student), as hyped as they are, were more or less guesstimates totally dependant upon people telling them exactly what they're watching and when. Even the demographics can get somewhat skewed -- educated people would be more likely to return the survey than non.<p>It makes more sense that this new emerging Internet-based distribution model would be more to the liking of those who are reliant upon an advertising-based revenue model for the simple fact that they can have more accurate numbers showing them how many viewers they have. But instead they whine and complain that they're losing money on a system that was never really optimized for their core purpose.
What drove me to cut was this: the content is getting steadily worse, bandwidth is becoming exponentially cheaper for providers, and yet - the price just kept going up.<p>I would expect to pay less YOY instead!<p>My in-laws subscribe to a cable service in France called "Neuf", that gives them phone, television, and Internet for something like 30 euros a month. I turned green with envy when I discovered that. THAT is a price that I think is reasonable.
We used to do cable service plus local video rental, because between spotty reception and the low resolution of broadcast TV, the experience wasn't that great. We would make the pilgrimage to the video store multiple times a week for everything else. We generally watch only the majors (ABC, etc.) and PBS affiliates, so the large channel selection of cable doesn't add much value. We made a decent antenna and now do over-the-air HDTV for our appointment viewing. It's gorgeous and free. We use Netflix DVD/streaming to get the rest of the content we watch. Netflix+Internet+OTA fulfills our needs at a much lower price point and much greater flexibility. The cable model needs improve to compete. It would be compelling for me with things like per-channel a la carte pricing and price parity between HD and SD service. The one thing I find compelling about the cable model today that's been hard for me to do personally is digital recording. For OTA HD recording, one either has to be able to afford TIVO or spend a significant amount of time and some money hand-building a DVR system.
www.topchan.tv is developed for people to seek alternative video content. Below are some examples of video not on the traditional TV.<p>The Game channel <a href="http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/10" rel="nofollow">http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/10</a> has game play recordings and streaming.<p>The VLOG channel <a href="http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/12" rel="nofollow">http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/12</a> has video blogs from people on Youtube.<p>The TED channel <a href="http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/264" rel="nofollow">http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/264</a> has the TED presentations.
Cable cutting numbers are so low as to be almost unmeasurable.<p>So why are Hulu and Netflix hamstrung by content creators as a threat to revenue again?