Average American Cable Subscriber Gets 189 Channels and Views 17

An anonymous reader writes "Nielsen, the company that studies the viewing habits of television viewers, announced its findings in a blog post Tuesday. Since 2008, the number of cable TV channels offered as a bundle rose from 129 to 189 in 2013, but in that time-frame viewers have consistently only watched an average of 17 channels. The data seems to support the notion that consumers are better off subscribing to channels a la carte, but cable companies are of the opinion that 'the price of cable TV wouldn't change much if channels were served à la carte because content providers won't sell the most popular programs to cable companies unless the provider's other channels are also served up.' Nielsen concluded in its post that 'quality is imperative—for both content creators and advertisers', signaling the possibility that more Americans will cut the cord after realizing that their cable bill has increased in the last few years but their consumption of content hasn't."

Comments

The Wall still relevant 35 years later

[The Grim Reefer]

So even with 189 channels, Pink Floyd is still pretty close with the lyrics from "Nobody's Home"

I've got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from.

Re:Oh yeah right

[Anonymous Coward]

ESPN is the most expensive channel in your cable package, and I don't watch sports. Just dropping the sports channels would cut a huge portion out of my (hypothetical) cable bill. Just because most people want ESPN doesn't mean everyone does.

Re:200 channels...

[GreatDrok]

"and nothing to watch."

Yeah, we had satellite for a good long time but gradually pared back the channels we received because many we wanted were tied to other channels we didn't and that pushed the price up. Once we got to the basic package we realised that the vast majority of what we watched was on free to air digital HD via our TiVo so we dropped Satellite. We're down to about ten channels now. Still nothing to watch though.

Oh yeah?

[RevWaldo]

Well, there's like a bajillion web sites, and I only visit about ten on a regular basis! Who's wasting bandwidth now? Checkmate, new media!

.

Here's the Scoop

[schnell]

Nobody wants to hear this, but it's the truth and people should understand it:

• Unbundling will not happen anytime soon
• This is because a handful of TV channels have a f***load of viewers (ESPN, Fox News, etc.)
• If your TV station has a f**kload of viewers, you are an idiot if you don't charge cable providers a high fee to carry it
• If you paid for each of those channels a la carte, it might be $10+/month or more, just like HBO
• Instead, those providers "bundle" those channels with less popular ones because - even though the big channels are the cash cows - they still make money on advertising from less popular channels
• For anyone (Disney, Fox, others) who have killer content on one channel, having more channels (even including less popular ones) = more money
• People pay higher cable bills, but more niche programming is out there - for example, the fact that you get Cartoon Network/Adult Swim is subsidized by what you pay for CNN. If channels were unbundled, it's unlikely that the ratings of "Adventure Time" or "Venture Brothers" could pay for Cartoon Network to be on the air.
• Unbundling may happen at some point, but when it does 70% of today's cable networks will go away. Maybe you don't watch most of them, but recognize that it will result in a diminishing of the wild diversity of programming (brilliant and crap, left and right politically, in many languages) that is arguably one of the best things about the "there's nothing on" diversity of channels today that doesn't appeal to many viewers but serves many previously neglected niches.

Re:Here's the Scoop

[odie5533]

The subsidization of niches seems to be failing of late. Rather than serving their niche, low-tier channels want more viewers so they can get a bigger cut of the pie. To do this, they tailor their programs for mass appeal. When once the History channel presented factual information about history, now it airs episodes of Pawn Stars and Ancient Aliens. When once TLC actually stood for The Learning Channel, now it airs things I'm embarrassed to know the names of. When once Sci-Fi aired niche science-fiction series, now SyFy is mostly about Ghost Hunting series. Abandoning the niche pulls in more viewers. I'd gladly pay $10+/month for an actual Sci-Fi channel that aired original science fiction series that haven't been retooled for the lowest common denominator of viewer. I think internet series are going to fill the niches going forward, while television seems to be homogenizing.

Re:Same problem as always...

[Opportunist]

Wives are a bit like Windows. Once you upgrade from girlfriend to wife, it's like upgrading from a previous Windows version to a later. You can, technically, go back, but it usually costs you a lot of time and effort, and if you're not careful a lot of your stuff is suddenly gone.