Slashdot Mirror
Streaming TV Sites Now Have More Subscribers Than Cable TV (axios.com)
Nielsen reported this week that millennials "spend about 27% less time watching traditional TV than viewers over the age of 35," possibly threatening the dominance of cable TV. An anonymous reader quotes Axios:
Streaming service subscribers (free or paid) increased again (68% in 2016 vs. 63% in 2014) and have caught up with the percentage of paid TV service providers (67%) for the first time ever, according to the Consumer Technology Association's new study, The Changing Landscape for Video and Content. The rise of streaming services represents a shift in consumption habits towards cord-cutting, primarily amongst millennials.
Some other trends are impossible to ignore. 2016 also saw a saw dramatic drops in the use of physical disks -- from 41% in 2015 to just 28% -- as well as another big drop in the use of antennas, from 18% to just 10%.
Some other trends are impossible to ignore. 2016 also saw a saw dramatic drops in the use of physical disks -- from 41% in 2015 to just 28% -- as well as another big drop in the use of antennas, from 18% to just 10%.
Time to stream The Golden Girls, since I can't find it on regular TV these days.
What are they using for internet if they don't have cable?
will the traditional cable and satellite companies 'see the light'?
fine print... term contracts or 'bundles' for the 'best' pricing.. higher prices for long-term customers than for new ones... bogus below-the-line 'fees'.. high hardware rental costs.. rate hikes constantly that defy logic and outpace inflation several times over... encrypted basic channels no clearqam.. shitty customer service... and even worse billing policies and practices.
fix all that and you might stop bleeding subscribers.
Add up all the cable tv subscription fees and ad revenue from all the tv channels. Add up all the subscription fees and ad revenue of streaming channels. Are they within even an order of magnitude?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
There is a typo in TFS:
2016 also saw a saw dramatic drops in the use of physical disks.
It should read:
"2016 also saw a saw saw dramatic drops in the use of physical disks." Like in "I see a saw sawing" since a saw was apparently used.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Cable TV and Sat is dead.
with the end of net neutrality, the internet will become a set of bundled channels like cable. The only difference is going to be it's now asyncronous transmission.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The millennials are like, "We don't care if you show ads, it just gives us more time to check Facebook, and lets the content be free". The advertisers are like, "F*&%^#".
Because they're tired of paying $80/mo for cable because it's the only way to get a couple dozen channels they want, but the cheapest bundle that includes those channels comes with hundreds of other channels they're not interested in. Whereas the streaming services offer more granular selection which lets you pick and choose those channels you want for $30/mo, because they're not bundled with a bunch of expensive sports channels you never watch.
So revenue is a bad metric to use too. The best metric would be Nielsen ratings based on viewing source - number of individual eyeballs watching a particular show via OTA, broadcast cable, vs. streaming. And even then cable has an unfair advantage because most cable ISPs offer a discount if you bundle Internet + TV service.
I don't understand people who buy them. You not only pay more for the discs, you buy shelves to put them on, rent a bigger apartment for the shelves, pack more boxes when you move, and spend more time looking for that one disc with the movie you want to watch.
I happen to pay for CRTV, but also donate through various means to certain people that provide free videos on Youtube. Those people are not monetized like TV, so you can't count revenue. I can count several dozen people with 600,000+ thousand subscribers who don't get monetized for most of their work.
Revenue is a horrible way to determine who's watching, view count is much more accurate. CNN makes more money than Joe Rogan, but Joe has more viewers on any given show. Most cable news (CNN/MSNBC) shows have a viewership of around 500,000, which in a population of 320 million is laughable. Again, compared to Joe Rogan who is not syndicated with his Podcast (Joe Rogan Experience) or even on TV, usually has over 600K views of his show.
Before you say "but partial watches" most people watching TV do exactly the same thing. Generally people do other things while the News is on.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
And you need to get 3-4 of those streaming services to get all the channels you want.
About 3 years ago I dropped cable or satellite TV service and only pay for broadband cable internet now. Just got too expensive and unreliable. Satellite faded in and out, cable provided channels I would never watch but had to get just to have the channels I wanted. Streaming was a great decision and I use a antenna for over the air stations. The technology is there for paying for individual channels but I suspect that's not popular with the Cable, Satellite or content provider. The thing that should put fear into cable internet and satellite internet providers should be is competition for internet. Once people cut all ties with them they won't be coming back.
I can't wait until I can dump Comcast altogether.
I suspect less people are watching broadcast news.
I think more people are getting their news from twitter, and youtube, and other internet sources.
MSM ratings, and credibility are tanking; as I understand it.
My wife & I are >60 and watch Netflix and Amazon exclusively. Neither of us can bear watching any TV program with commercials.
Cox has a one year 50Mbps and Contour package for $99 after taxes. You can stream all of the channels in your package on the iOS app. My wife actually watches less on the TV now (compare to our previous OTA setup) and just stream the live channels on her iPad. The app is much better than the cable box. It's faster, easier to use and only shows the channels you subscribed.
I haven't had cable, satellite or antenna for a decade now, and there is no way in hell I would go back to traditional TV. While I object to commercials, I object even more strenuously to artificial scarcity. I want all content available everywhere, all the time, at reasonable prices. As long as content owners refuse to comply, piracy will thrive. As for live events, they are vastly overrated - a few hours old recording is just as good, most of the time. I hope that traditional TV will pass away ASAP.
That completely depends, now doesn't it?
You'd think the cable monopolies would see this, but they don't.
Yep. We found that PlayStation Vue's middle tier for $35 gives us the ESPN and Fox Sports channels we need to watch the ACC basketball games we want, whereas Sling would have cost more like $40 for several "packages" that they spread the ESPN channels over that we get in the one Vue package. Plus we have to use OTA for the local stations that broadcast "local" ESPN-blacked out teams, Wake Forest, Duke, UNC, and NC State, which is annoying since we have to check several schedules to figure out which stations are showing games involving those teams on a given day. Once the NCAA Final Four are done, so are we until football season starts up, and I will stop the PS Vue subscription till then since we really have not gotten hooked on any modern series programs since STNG ended, and our kids grew up and moved out ;-}
And since we hate movie theaters, and most of what HollyWeird produces, we just buy about a dozen DVD's a year to satisfy our movie tastes. For other "social entertainment", my wife keeps up with all the family doings on FB, and I haunt fora like this one...
When tv went digital, I've been broadcast free. I've never subscribed to cable. To the best of my knowledge my kids have almost never seen a tv ad... though my youngest is lately telling me that my use of browser ad-blockers is somehow immoral, so I don't know where she's getting that brainwashing.
I buy netflix, HBO and Showtime over the internet. I really hate HBO because they advertise shows on HBO before shows on HBO. I'M ALREADY BUYING THAT SHIT!!!! WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SELL IT TO ME?
Ahem.
I tried Crunchy Roll-- it has very little content. Seriously-- no DBZ or One Punch Man on an anime channel?
Since millenials includes people as old as 38.
Because they're tired of paying $80/mo for cable because it's the only way to get a couple dozen channels they want, but the cheapest bundle that includes those channels comes with hundreds of other channels they're not interested in. Whereas the streaming services offer more granular selection which lets you pick and choose those channels you want for $30/mo, because they're not bundled with a bunch of expensive sports channels you never watch.
Random story which may elucidate why this is wrong:
I played World of Warcraft back in the classic days, and used to get pretty miffed when I saw +Spell Damage on a piece of armour instead of +Frost Damage; after all, why waste precious stat points on all those elements my frost mage wasn't going to use? Bollocks to that +33 Spell Damage item, it should ditch the other elements and become a +40 Frost Damage one.
My view was a bit naive, I'll admit. The game was balanced around the amount of bonus damage the existing armour provided; if it were altered to give me an advantage, which seemed possible (+single element damage seemed to use fewer item stat points than +all element damage), then they'd have to rebalance everything around that; probably by lowering the base damage of my character, which would suck.
So while you see this bundle which has Awesome Channel + 30 other channels you don't give a hoot about, the cable company is aware. It's bundling those for convenience on their behalf. If they removed the 29 channels you don't watch they wouldn't reduce the price, because it still costs them the same to deliver those channels that you do watch as it did previously. The others are sort of a bonus.
It's a bit weird, and easy to feel like you should be able to optimise and pick just the bit you want to get ahead, but it seems likely that the removal of channels from a pack wouldn't affect the price at all, because you're only paying for what you use - you're just lumped into a group with others who pay for the [different] parts that they use.
25 to 33% of regular TV is commercials, so just by streaming commercial free you cut that much out of your viewing time. I for one can never go back, it's just too painful to have to waste time on commercials.