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Title: DEATH OF CABLE NEWS: Cord Cutting At Record Highs
Source:
DailyWire
URL Source: http://www.dailywire.com/news/21007 ... cutting-record-highs-paul-bois
Published: Sep 13, 2017
Author: Paul Bois
Post Date: 2017-09-14 09:13:34 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 1416
Comments: 17
The research shows that 22.2 million adults will cut the cord in 2017 for satellite or telco TV services, a full 33% jump from 2016. At this time last year, eMarketer speculated the number of cord cutters would be somewhere around 15.4 million, but it appears their estimates were wildly off. Even more intriguing, the phenomenon of "cord-nevers” — people who have never subscribed to paid TV — will rise 5.8% this year, to 34.4 million. “Younger audiences continue to switch to either exclusively watching [over-the-top] video or watching them in combination with free-TV options,” said Chris Bendtsen, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “Last year, even the Olympics and [the U.S.] presidential election could not prevent younger audiences from abandoning pay TV.” The study did not include internet TV services, such as Dish Network’s Sling TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now, Hulu’s live TV service, Netflix, or YouTube TV. Though the drop is significant, the number of "cord-remainers" stands at 196.3 million U.S. adults, down just 2.4% from last year, which means we have a long way to go before the revolution really starts to hit the wallets of cable news outlets. By 2021, eMarketer predicts the number will fall to 181.7 million, a decline of 10%, with the biggest consumers of cable in the 55+ age bracket. The trend will result in a bizarre generational split of media consumption, with a total of 81 million (mostly younger adults) adults living cable free. Cable providers have begun bracing for the storm with streaming services. Variety profiled more: Though hardly anybody watches CNN, as the ratings show, the fake news outlet still swims in buckets of cash, and that's largely because of cable subscriptions, which totals 50% of their total revenue. That means that protest boycotts of CNN, or any other leftist network for that matter, do absolutely nothing so long as you keep paying the cable subscription fees. It might be time to join that 81 million ...
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Cable news may soon get it's long awaited comeuppance for peddling leftist propaganda and pushing socialist agendas, because the revolution of cord cutting is upon us. According to research firm eMarketer, american consumers are cutting the cord at an even faster rate than expected. CBS in 2014 launched All Access, while Disney has set early 2018 for the debut of a no-cable-needed ESPN OTT package (although that will exclude NFL and NBA games). In addition, five media companies — A+E Networks, Viacom, Discovery, Scripps Networks Interactive and AMC Networks — reportedly have joined forces to create a non-sports streaming bundle of cable programming to be priced at under $20 per month.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
#1. To: Tooconservative (#0)
Mine's been cut for about six months. Only using the evil Comcast for internet. Consider TV fare is basically now nothing but leftist SJW propaganda (including sports), no biggie.
I had stopped even watching it so my cord is cut now. I just have Amazon Prime and my home Plex media server. And I don't use Amazon much. Anyway, I knew we had some cordcutters here at LF so I thought I'd post this tidbit.
How is Prime? Any older fare that's worthy? (Older TV and movies?) Be interesting to poll LFers on how many have cut the cord.
Some, nowhere near a real collection IMO. It varies too, depending on which studios they have contracts with. About the same as others. I think Hulu probably is your best bet for a big selection of classic TV shows. You, me, Stone, sneakypete come to mind. I think there are a few others. That's a fair number, considering none of us are in the prime cordcutter age group of under-40's. Cable will go away, the same way that cellphones have mostly killed landlines to the home. Starts with the young people, older folks join in.
I was intending to write an article on cord-cutting, which means different things to different people. To me, it means using internet to as nearly as possible duplicate my DirecTV experience, at a greatly reduced price. Some have the goal of reducing the price to as near to zero as possible with acceptable inconvenience.
Sure. I dumped Directv too. But I could have just subscribed to their basic $35 internet package instead, a considerable savings since I already have high-speed internet (only 20Mbps but plenty fast for 1080p). The whole era of small dishes may just go away if SpaceX carries through on Elon Musk's plan to launch a global system of satellite internet via 2,000 small low-orbit satellites that he is planning. These would launch into low orbit and they would have to replace them every few years as they fell into the atmosphere and burned up. But that is still years away. In the meantime, cable news profits continue to shrink as their base is reduced to the over-fifty crowd. So cable news can't get new customers and is left with their core audience of old farmers out in flyover country staring at the boobs and legs of scantily clad news strumpets on Fox News. It's a captive audience but a shrinking one. And it is not the profitable 18-54 advertising demographic that brings in top ad rates.
Directv Now's lack of a cloud DVR capability means watching live only. That is a deal breaker for me. Playstation Vue offers about the same channel lineup for $35 (going to $44.99 on 1 Nov). Directv Now's $35 is an introductory price, going up. Playstation Vue offers cloud recording. Just add a show to My Shows and watch whenever.
I know that was the initial deal but I thought that they started offering a cloud-based DVR solution months back. Anyway, they were supposed to. What I recall of the announcement is that you could mark something you recorded and want to Keep and it would stay in the Directv cloud available to you for six months (or maybe it was a year). Then it could be auto-deleted by them. I just recall you couldn't assume you could keep a recording forever but it was long enough for most people. I thought at the time it was so you couldn't just keep your big Superbowl recording and skip buying the Blu-ray disc. Or so you could keep all your TV series recordings and never buy the box set of the series.
#11. To: Tooconservative (#9)
That is a convenient possibility with the Tivo with 2T drive and a good antenna. Digital TV tends to provide rock solid reception, and the good OTA signal will always be better than cable or sat, both of which are better than internet. OTA does not compress the signal, cable and sat do, and internet does it more. It is just a matter of bandwidth. Internet tends to display the occasional compression artifact, notably on the edges of straight lines. Mostly, this is nitpicking. Loss of speed will result in signal downgrade from 1080 to 720 to 480 and that will not be nitpicking. That may be just the visible difference one accepts in exchange for a free signal. Another consideration is sound quality, especially if one plans playback on a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound home theater system. As far as I know, the cable channel providers transmit a PCM stream 2-channel stereo signal. I can get that to show up on the receiver as PL II X Movie, a Dolby 2-channel reception that can be expanded to 5.1 or 7.1 by adding synthesized channels. That does not produce the audio effect of TV, cable or satellite Dolby-encrypted 5.1 channel sound. This is speaking of the signal as provided from a Roku Ultima, using either a digital optical or HDMI cable. This is not an issue to OTA channels, Amazon or Netflix, all of which send in an apparent Dolby-encoded 5.1 channel stream. The Roku still decrypts that to 2-channel. However, a Tivo Bolt natively handles OTA, Amazon, Netflix, and more. The Tivo Bolt provides the Dolby D encrypted sound which the receiver shows as Dolby D EX, a 5.1 channel sound which expands to 7.1 by synthesizing the 2 rear channels. The sound rivals anything on cable or satellite. Copping HBO as an Amazon add-on channel also gets the same sound. This would presmuaby work for the HBO Now! app (not to be confused with HBO GO) on Tivo, but I have not tried tried that. Of course, none of this on sound quality has much to do with someone planning to listen to the built-in tv speakers. An added benny to the Tivo is afforded for playback of almost all OTA shows. Called commercial skip, when a commercial starts, hit the d key, and the playback skips the whole block of ads and resumes with the program. It closely approximates commercial free viewing.
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#3. To: Liberator (#1)
Mine's been cut for about six months. Only using the evil Comcast for internet.
#4. To: Tooconservative (#3)
#5. To: Liberator, A K A Stone, sneakypete (#4)
(Edited)
Any older fare that's worthy? (Older TV and movies?)
Be interesting to poll LFers on how many have cut the cord.
#6. To: Tooconservative, Liberator, A K A Stone, sneakypete (#5)
I think there are a few others. That's a fair number, considering none of us are in the prime cordcutter age group of under-40's.
#7. To: nolu chan (#6)
To me, it means using internet to as nearly as possible duplicate my DirecTV experience, at a greatly reduced price.
#8. To: Tooconservative (#7)
Sure. I dumped Directv too. But I could have just subscribed to their basic $35 internet package instead, a considerable savings since I already have high-speed internet (only 20Mbps but plenty fast for 1080p).
#9. To: nolu chan (#8)
Directv Now's lack of a cloud DVR capability means watching live only. That is a deal breaker for me.
Replies to Comment # 9. I thought at the time it was so you couldn't just keep your big Superbowl recording and skip buying the Blu-ray disc. Or so you could keep all your TV series recordings and never buy the box set of the series.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
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