TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

http://www.businessinsider.com/cord-cutters-and-the-death-of-tv-2013-11

by 001sky • 13 years ago

184 188 13 years ago

This sort of thing just makes me more upset about youtube. Google has the future of video in the palm of their hands but they don't understand and don't care. Typical of a bloated empire.

I just hope that google doesn't destroy their golden goose merely because they are too incompetent to understand its value or importance.

Edit: Unrelated, I was annoyed by the quality of the "net subscriber adds" graph since it's obviously dominated by an annual signal, so I created a smoothed version (the raw data should be accurate to within ~5-10 pixels give or take): http://i.imgur.com/ffBzR8g.png

pan694• 13 years ago

Google has the future of video in the palm of their hands but they don't understand and don't care. Typical of a bloated empire.

A little more reasoning would be appreciated.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

Maybe I'll actually write something more substantive on the subject, there's a lot of depth to it. For now I'll just point out that many young creators in video are falling into the youtube sphere of influence.

A lot of independent video producers have switched from using their own proprietary video distribution systems to merely hosting their videos on youtube. The monetization difficulties are made up by the ease of distribution, network effect, and lower costs.

Also, there are a fair number of kickstarter projects where the end result is the creation of videos on youtube (such as Tropes vs Women). Within the Film & Video category on kickstarter many projects in all sub-categories will release their content on youtube and the webseries sub-category is almost entirely youtube projects. If youtube had better monetization models and improved ability to host paid and unpaid content almost all of those projects would host on youtube.

Consider the many musical acts that have risen to fame through exposure or maturation through youtube. Walk off the Earth, Julia Nunes, Pentatonix, and of course Justin Beiber being just a few examples among many.

Consider that Bon Jovi's song "Living on a Prayer" recently made its way back to #25 on Billboard's charts (27 years after release) almost entirely due to the popularity of a viral video on youtube of a fan at a Celtic's game dancing enthusiastically to the song.

(Edit: also look at the importance of youtube in the most widely heard pop music such as Psy's Gangnam Style, LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, etc. It's clear that youtube is as culturally relevant as MTV ever was, and that's just a tiny fraction of youtube's influence on the world.)

Or consider the veritable ecosystem of new funding platforms springing up to help creators using youtube to monetize and support their work (such as subbable.com, tested.com). Google's idea along these lines is to introduce pay walls, whereas almost every creator prefers to use more of a pledge drive / premium level model.

Google has tackled the technical bits of web video quite well. They built a system that handles video uploads at greater than 6,000x real-time (over 6,000 seconds of video are uploaded to youtube every second).

Youtube alone is responsible for nearly 1/5th of all internet traffic.

Stop and read that again, it's important. 1/5th of the usage of the entire internet is being dedicated to the use of youtube. And that figure is growing by double digit percentages year over year.

Unquestionably people are increasingly spending their video viewing hours watching content on youtube. And creators are increasingly turning to youtube as their distribution platform.

So yes, I'd say it's fair to say that there's a very strong case that youtube is the future of video. And yet google still treats it as a hindrance, as a second class citizen. As mentioned above creators are desperate for tools to help them support and monetize their video making but they have to turn to 3rd party services to do so. Google has the expertise and capability to offer creators everything they need in a one stop shop. They also have the ability to invest in and support video makers to plant a seed of content creators on their site. And they did, but half-heartedly and without sufficient follow through. It's going to take years until more than a handful of people can support themselves through youtube and even longer before we can see the sort of content that a "youtube generation" of artists is capable of creating. In the meantime such creators have to contend with google making arbitrary changes to youtube for their own petty reasons with little thought for the true potential of what they control.

shiftpgdn• 13 years ago

Good riddance. I cut the cord about a year and a half ago and replaced my cable box with a Roku box. There was a brief period where I missed the background noise but now I find broadcast/cable television unbearably grating. Frankly I think the cable companies brought it upon themselves with the constant loud commercial interruptions, the garbage programming, and the utterly miserable cable box interfaces.

paul92902• 13 years ago

I have my Mac mini connected to my TV.

With this set up I can watch marathons of whatever TV show I want on various legal streaming sites. Thus providing same background noise you speak of.

jcromartie• 13 years ago

I've found that some sites (at least Amazon) don't allow HD streaming on PCs, while they do allow it on dedicated devices (Apple TV or PS3, for instance). I was all ready to ditch the Apple TV and use a full-fledged PC and then that happened.

ajtaylor• 13 years ago

I've recently purchased a Roku as well so I can use Netflix. So that combined with Plex + downloaded content means I hardly ever watch broadcast TV any more.

jseliger• 13 years ago

Good riddance

The downside is that cable subscribers subsidize the handful of TV shows I actually want to watch. Individually, every person who quits makes a rational decision, but when everyone quits we don't get a lot of good shows.

Maybe Netflix or Amazon or whoever will take up the slack. Or maybe those shows will just go away.

selmnoo• 13 years ago

Maybe Netflix or Amazon or whoever will take up the slack. Or maybe those shows will just go away.

It already is. Netflix is funding a lot of new stuff (House of Cards, Orange is the new Black, lots of standup stuff). Note that this stuff is being received very well by normal consumers and critics alike. They're also funding canceled shows like Arrested Development, Lillyhammer, etc.

cmsmith• 13 years ago

This is an important point that everyone really misses.

Cable companies make (50M subscribers * $100 /month * 12 mo/yr)=60B dollars per year. TV advertising is another $80B /year. Overhead and profit might eat up 20-50% of that, but we're still left with a bill, to create the TV we want to watch, of a few hundred dollars per US man, woman, and child.

Why would people imagine that we can replace that market with a hundred million $8/month netflix subscriptions and not see a decline in the availability of quality programming?

philwelch4• 13 years ago

I can live with going back to reading books and watching movies.

interpol_p• 13 years ago

I'm in the same position. I cut the cord five years ago and have just been using Apple TV for Netflix.

TV commercials are impossible to put up with. They are almost painfully annoying. When I'm visiting my family I just have to turn off the TV, it's impossible to concentrate on conversation otherwise.

deletes• 13 years ago

I have stopped watching tv about 5 years ago, have multiple blockers on my browsers and I learned to intentionally ignore physical adds(magazines/boards).

It is pretty awesome.

Brakenshire• 13 years ago

TV commercials are impossible to put up with. They are almost painfully annoying.

The worst part is that TV ads are a major part of shared culture. People watch many different channels and many different shows, but the large ad campaigns transcend those boundaries. They squat in the shared mind-space and instruct everyone that 'buying your kids junk-food will make you a happy family' (or more insidiously 'your parents should buy you junk-food, because that's what happy, normal families do'). I actually saw one today which discouraged you from asking your friends for help, apparently it's better to pay the company to do repairs than go through all the hassle of having to repay a favour. These sort of campaigns beggar belief, either they are ineffective, or they must surely do serious collateral damage to shared values.

backprojection• 13 years ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one. But how do you handle situation? My family usually takes offense, and I can see that I would seem arrogant for doing so. I just don't know how to communicate how intrusive and strident the TV is to me.

prawks• 13 years ago

In college, when we were hanging out all around a TV watching a game or something, we would mute the TV during the commercials.

It was strange at first for new people, but surprisingly effective.

deepGem• 13 years ago

What I fear is the invasion of advertisers on the online channels. Youtube is already getting there. I just hope that it doesn't get as bad as TV though.

johnorourke• 13 years ago

Who needs stats... my teenage kids pretty much ignore 200 satellite channels and instead watch youtube, read forums and IM their friends.

When they were growing up I allowed them to be bombarded with information - TV on, web access, phones from an early age - and they've developed the ability to filter it quite well and just ignore things that don't interest them.

The only down side is:

"awww dad I didn't get anything done today" "why, son?" "some Internet happened"

shubhamjain• 13 years ago

I don't think TV will ever die because when your kids will be bored with forums, or have nothing on their watch list they will switch on their TV. When TV came, people thought it was an end to the film industry but nothing like that happened. Though, statistically speaking the future seems obscure for television and usage is declining but I am sure something for it will come up that may revive it.

slackpad• 13 years ago

My 8 year old has only experienced real-time broadcast television when staying at a hotel, where he was frustrated and perplexed that we couldn't rewind it (he has no clue where the concept of rewinding really comes from). He has always experienced media he can control on YouTube or Netflix. I can't imagine he'd ever subscribe to something like cable in the future. Maybe if TV could associate itself with Minecraft somehow they could reach this cohort, but I suspect it's a lost cause.

bluthru• 13 years ago

Making me turn on the TV at a specific time and date to watch something is such alien notion to me at this point. All of these shows worry about schedules and what's on other networks, but that's eventually not going to matter at all.

purringmeow• 13 years ago

And that's not all! Insane copyright prevents a lot of people from legally watching popular series. I am in Europe and there is no legal way for me to watch say "The Walking Dead" or any other series.

So what do I do when I don't get proper service? Piracy - it gives me on demand HQ content.

I wonder when TV networks will move into the 21st century. The next network delivers cheap, on demand HD content worldwide will make a ton of money :)

chipotle_coyote• 13 years ago

A lot of it isn't exactly copyright, it's contractual obligation, I suspect. In America, the "old guard" networks are still tied to local affiliate stations, which are increasingly anchors rather than efficient distribution points. International distribution has always been a maze of weird contractual obligations, but just like the American local affiliate problem, it's a case of "it made sense at the time." The problem now is that there are still people making money from the way things are and they're going to fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.

I wonder when TV networks will move into the 21st century.

2016. That sounds glib, but that's my real prediction: my suspicion is that a lot of contracts are going to be coming up for renewal over the next 3-5 years and either they're not going to be renewed or they're going to take vastly different forms.

The big problem is figuring out what "cheap" actually means, of course. Internet users sometimes seem to have kind of unrealistic expectations about pricing.

GhotiFish2• 13 years ago

There is a growing chorus saying that piracy is at fault for degrading the services we get in media.

If piracy never existed at all, imagine how insane those restrictions would be now. They would charge per minute, they would charge for pausing, they would charge for recording. It would be state by state, province by province by province, town by town.

k-mcgrady2• 13 years ago

> "I am in Europe and there is no legal way for me to watch say "The Walking Dead" or any other series."

You can't buy the box set anywhere? You can download it from iTunes or another legal service? I'm in Europe too (UK to be specific and can do both of those things).

I'm guessing what you really mean is you can't watch it when you want to, you have to wait a little while longer.

krapp2• 13 years ago

Funny enough I get Doctor Who and Top Gear the same way, being an American, so I guess it all balances out....

artichokeheart• 13 years ago

"I wonder when TV networks will move into the 21st century. The next network delivers cheap, on demand HD content worldwide will make a ton of money :)"

Direct, worldwide on demand content models will start as soon as they think they will make more money from those models than the current double-dealing, relicensing, government subsidies models they currently use.

Nux• 13 years ago

> I wonder when TV networks will move into the 21st century. The next network delivers cheap, on demand HD content worldwide will make a ton of money :)

It's called bittorrent. Enjoy! :-)

alfiejohn_• 13 years ago

"You mean everybody had to sit down and watch the same thing at the same time?" -- kids of the tomorrow

Vivtek2• 13 years ago

Tomorrow? My kids right now! And they're 19 and 14, mind you.

VLM9• 13 years ago

The kids of today not tomorrow. At least mine. They are absolutely mystified in the rare event we watch something "live" that Dad can't just fast forward thru the commercials.

tsotha2• 13 years ago

The article doesn't break it down by demographics, but everything I've read on the subject shows an enormous generational split. The kids have already abandoned cable, so unless they somehow change their habits the clock is ticking on broadcast television.

ufo• 13 years ago

I think Sports will be an exception. Watching games live is always going to matter.

anon_d• 13 years ago

Twitch.tv! Youtube!

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

Actually, yesterday evening (European time) I did exactly that for the first time in a long time for anything other than sports.

Of course, the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is an anachronistic bit of nostalgia for many reasons.

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

TV may die, but content will not.

TV shows may die, but our need for storytelling will survive.

pan694• 13 years ago

I don't think the article is disputing that. It's about the medium on which those stories are told that is changing.

thisiswrong• 13 years ago

Yet its is important to bring this up. The MAFIAA/government will always manipulate this argument to give the illusion that content and culture is dying. Thus the MAFIAA gets to keep its propaganda monopoly and the government its censorship.

a8da6b0c91d• 13 years ago

Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!

bd• 13 years ago

The demise of TV in a single chart:

http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2013-10-21/less-time-i...

Younger the viewers, less TV they watch.

andyl2• 13 years ago

Wow - these graphs show 20-46 hours of viewing per week.

Per week. I had no idea.

VLM9• 13 years ago

The data is bogus. A full time job with modest overtime... watching TV? There is not physically enough time in the week.

vitd2• 13 years ago

Same here! I don't even have kids and I can barely fit in 8-10 hours per week. For my demographic, they're claiming 30+ hours per week. Next time my friends with kids complain about "not enough time in the day," I think I'm going to smack them!

anigbrowl3• 13 years ago

I would be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from that. Younger viewers are also more likely to have school work as kids or college students, and as young adults they spend more time running around exploring the world, seeking a mate, and so on. On the other hand, when they settle down viewing patterns can change. Also, bear in mind that now many current shows are competing with older shows available through services like Netflix; they make less money up front, but the 'long tail' gets fatter for quality or cult shows.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

But you can see that the trend is downward in each younger demographic. Also you'll notice that the figures from comparable cohorts stay pretty steady over time. For example, the 2011 18-24 figures are similar to the 2013 25-34 figures, and the 2011 12-17 figures are similar to the 2013 18-24 figures. The data from just that chart is not complete enough to follow a particular group as it ages but still it looks like the chart supports the idea that younger folks simply watch less TV and will continue to do so even as they get older.

chaostheory• 13 years ago

Also, bear in mind that now many current shows are competing with older shows available through services like Netflix; they make less money up front, but the 'long tail' gets fatter for quality or cult shows.

I don't think services like Amazon or Netflix counts as TV even though they carry a lot of TV episodes

ChrisNorstrom3• 13 years ago

Yeah, many of them are either out with friends or online gaming like my little brother.

When I was a kid we came home and watched Pokemon, CardCaptor Sakura, Yu-Gi-Oh, every afternoon. All those cartoons are gone now.

mstrem• 13 years ago

Well, that is not the full story though... I expect older people to watch more TV. All my grand parents basically sit in front of the TV all day... I would expect I would watch a lot more if I was older currently, even simply because I would have a lot more free time.

protomyth• 13 years ago

My parents have the TV on as long as they are awake - for a lot of that time, it is just background noise.

VLM9• 13 years ago

As an older guy I can assure you personally that when I have free time, the last thing I want to do with it is watch TV. Too much living to do.

I do agree with your observation about old people and TV in that my experience with elderly ancestors is an extremely high correlation between watching TV all day and death within the next couple years. When you can't do anything anymore physically but open your eyes, the socially accepted dumping ground (at least on a small scale) is in front of a TV. I believe this explains the peculiar claim that 80 year old people "watch" 16 hours per day of TV on average. This does not explain the claims about 50 year olds.

ollysb• 13 years ago

I presume these charts don't include watching pirated shows on their computer...

FrankBlack• 13 years ago

I think most of the networks stream their shows for a short time on their web sites. At this point I just wonder, why not just cut out the middle-man and get on with it? I'll pay for subscriptions, but not for endless commercials and 490 of 500 channels that I don't even watch. Not for TV shows that have stupid animations in the corner every five minutes. Since the cable and satellite companies refuse to give us the choice we want, we simply choose to opt-out. Once communities start installing their own low-cost fiber and free wi-fi en-mass without the litigation, the last hope of Time Warner and such fossils will be gone. TV isn't dying, it is dead and just too stupid to realize it.

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

It's probably because "we" (the purveyors of such consumption behavior) are still not the majority yet.

With time though... with time...

rfnslyr• 13 years ago

Never grew up with a TV, won't ever know what it's like.

chaz• 13 years ago

TV still has plenty of life in it. Be careful of those graphs with a non-zero y-axis minimum.

But there is a shift happening. The biggest question to me is whether brand advertising dollars are/can/will shift with it. We need new ad products. Especially ones that will reach younger audiences who avoid current ad products. Maybe opportunities for Snapchat/Twitter.

Also, content production is going to see some challenges without large amounts of ads to support it. I think there's still --on average -- a big gap in budget, revenue, audience, and quality between successful online-only shows better suited for YouTube and near-filler content on niche cable networks that have managed to stay alive with advertising. Cost of content production is still quite expensive. House of Cards had a $100 million budget to produce 13 episodes. Shows need a lot of audience to make the numbers work, and I'm hoping we see some acceleration here.

hrkristian2• 13 years ago

Question is, at what point does traditional TV channels become so unpopular that they're simply not worth operating anymore?

Perhaps the better question is, when does traditional TV become so unpopular those satellites taking up geosynchronous orbit space get dumped into the oceans?

spiritplumber2• 13 years ago

Roughly never -- the satellites would just be repurposed. Sending mass to geostationary is EXPENSIVE. Like, 100k$/kilogram.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

Much of this is true, but I think it's important not to look at the differences just through a lens of production values. Even worse to equation production values with merit or quality of the end product.

There have been several low budget films and tv shows that have become highly successful and well regarded, the same is and will be true in the online realm. Look at Mad Max, which was made for around a third of a million dollars, Primer, or Napoleon Dynamite.

But also it's not just production value or even quality but fundamental differences in character. TV was a different sort of beast than film, and even over the last decade commercial TV has changed a lot. Look at all of the independent content that sprang up on non-network TV channels, especially from HBO. A show like The Wire, or even more so The Corner, was very unlikely to ever be made within the confines of traditional network TV. TV has a different sort of character than film in terms of the sorts of productions that are suited for TV, and online video is different as well, but we haven't seen all of the ways that's so.

One example I'd highlight is the Lizzie Bennet diaries, a modern adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in vlog form of over 100 "episodes" of typical youtube length (~3-5 minutes).

Another example would be Periodic Videos (and related projects). These are educational videos about chemistry but because they don't have the length limits or requirements of traditional TV they can be focused on a single subject without being forced to add in unrelated filler.

Or, there's Lindybeige, who's likes to talk about medieval, classical, and bronze age technology and weapons. It's just a guy expressing his opinions and trying to back them up with experience or logic but it's frequently just as informative and interesting as watching a typical historical tv show.

majani• 13 years ago

I think the native advertising trend is taking care of the awful advertising problem. Ads that look and feel just like the product are way more palatable than banners. Only problem now is scaling native ads. The opportunity here is for a native ad network that can work with most of the top Content Management systems of the world

vitd2• 13 years ago

I disagree. Native ads are extremely cynical and turn off users more than regular ads, which at least have the dignity to admit that they are ads. They're far less palatable (which is pretty amazing) because they seem so forced. They're like the uncanny valley of ads. They look close to the real thing, but something is so off it's creepy.

dinkumthinkum12• 13 years ago

You mean YouTube shows like Difranco's aren't poised to destroy "evil traditional media?"

cylinder• 13 years ago

TV is in its heyday. Dramas are at the highest quality they've ever been.

The protocol, cable (and satellite), is dying. Almost nobody in my age range, or younger (late 20s), has cable. Everyone has Netflix along with some other streaming services combined with iTunes purchases and such. If you want to watch live sports, the NFL is free over the air, you'll just miss out on the NBA (oh well).

Cable television has no reason to exist. Get rid of it and use the bandwidth for streaming. I just bought a TV after not having one for half a year, and briefly considered getting Time Warner. After seeing what they charge for the basic service, along with $16/month for the "equipment rental," why would I bother? Life is better without cable anyways, the garbage on there just stresses me out and makes me hate our society! You do not need CNN, my life is so peaceful not knowing what their talking heads are spewing off about.

eropple4• 13 years ago

Almost nobody in my age range, or younger (late 20s), has cable.

Are you sure that's not just selection bias? I'm 25 and almost everybody I know around my age does have cable. Some are sports fans (and you miss out on much of MLB, the NBA, and the NHL by cutting cable--the streaming prices for each are extortionate and there are cable-area blackouts for local games), some just really can't be bothered to put up with the delays to get to Netflix or other streaming solutions (for many there is a strong social component to being able to see, and discuss, television programs simultaneously with your peers).

hrkristian2• 13 years ago

This is clearly because of pirates and VHS!

Sorry, and on a more serious note, I should hope this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. Moving out a few years ago I ordered a 25/25 fiber line and completely dropped any form of cable/satellite package.

Norway, similar to the UK and probably many other countries, has a "TV Licence" which I still gladly pay, even though by law I am not required to do so as I don't technically have any TV channels in my house. NRK (Norwegian "BBC") provides a fantastic internet service on par with BBC's player, that does not require me to handle the archaic technology that is decoders and their 1990's era hardware running millennium software.

dpcan• 13 years ago

"The old way of watching TV" is dying, and TV itself is just aging, and finding its place among Internet options it seems. It's now just another option among many, but I don't see that as meaning it will "die".

I subscribe to Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Cable TV.

This way of getting entertainment is actually frustratingly expensive.

And to make things even dumber, sometime NONE of these services have what I want without an additional convenience fee. So my wife and I will stop at a Red Box and get a movie for about $1/2, LOL. It's crazy.

When 3 or 4 more $10 per month options pop-up, and everyone is watching some great show exclusive to that service, then what? Things get WAY worse.

Someone needs to start a company where I pay $80-$100 per month, and I get EVERY one of these services streamed through 1 site to every room in my house :) Someone get started, make the deals, get this going, OK. Good luck.

eikenberry• 13 years ago

This way of getting entertainment is actually frustratingly expensive.

That's because you still have cable. Dump it and you'll get down to a reasonable cost.

Hulu + Netflix + Prime is around $23/month.

__david__• 13 years ago

Sadly that's still not enough to completely replace cable (the HBO series don't show up there). And even with Netflix and a cable TV subscription, I still find myself torrenting certain things. Sadly, torrenting is just so much easier than most of the legit ways to get shows.

mickdarling• 13 years ago

The total number of hours watching video is still increasing through. You also have to consider that the cost of production is dropping, and the number of big players in the TV market is still tiny. The huge players are (Disney/ABC, NBCU/Comcast, Time Warner, Fox/Newscorp, CBS/Viacom) and they own an enormous percentage of TV Networks and TV production, both domestically and internationally.

So individual shows rating may be dropping and rating for networks may be going down, but they are spreading their revenues across a lot of the more niche properties. They also make a huge amount from Cable licenses for the whole package of networks to ensure they have as many channels available to viewers as possible.

They are now learning to monetize their properties across digital media, and you will see that growth into online media and consolidation there soon.

I work with major media groups helping them with social media and the growing time-shifted audience, so I've heard a lot of the plans for the future. They see the writing on the wall, and while broadcast and cable might be shrinking, the content creation and advertising around video entertainment will keep growing, of that I am certain.

jstalin2• 13 years ago

I cut the cable TV cord three years ago, when it was costing me over $100 a month. I don't miss it one bit. In fact, when I go over to a friend's house and watch some TV I feel like it's just grating noise.

I have broadband Internet at $35 a month (about 20mbps), Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, and I have more than I need. I spend a lot less time wasting time flipping channels and watching commercials. I total about 3-4 hours a week of watching anything on TV.

dinkumthinkum12• 13 years ago

So are all the shows you watch on Netflix purely ones created by Netflix and not ones that came from one of those ... those TV channels?

Vivtek2• 13 years ago

By means of ... negotiated content contracts?

jstalin2• 13 years ago

I don't know... and I don't care.

donquichotte• 13 years ago

Of course it is dying, and I'm glad it is. TV is one of the most obnoxious formats of distributing information, shoving adds in your face without giving you a chance to turn them off or skip them and forcing its schedule onto your limited time.

ljd• 13 years ago

I cut the Time Warner Cable cord in Q3 as well.

We have an Apple TV which plays Netflix, Hulu, PBS, Rented Movies, Music and YouTube.

After 2-3 months of us never switching off of the Apple TV HDMI port, I told the kids I was going to cancel cable which they could never find anything of substance to watch anyway and they didn't even put up a fight.

None of us watch sports so there was virtually no reason to keep cable anymore.

What I found slightly disturbing was how hard it is to setup an over-the-air TV setup. It's going to cost about $200 in equipment and another $100 to setup on my roof. It seems almost insane how expensive free TV has become to get. It'll still pay off because we were paying over $100 for TWC; it's just strange to see something that used to be so simple become so complex and I didn't care about it because I thought I would just have cable the rest of my life.

_wp3r4• 13 years ago

Over the air has been exceedingly hit or miss for me also. Even after the equipment the actual delivery seems very scattered. I know in my head that the delivery of digital with correction should be better than analog, but the experience simply is not.

I am not a electrical engineer, so can anyone shed light on why the range for channels on digital is so much lower than it was with analog, also is weather much more impeding for digital than analog?

dmfdmf• 13 years ago

OTA can be tricky because its not as simple as just throwing up an antenna and calling it a day, the system has to be engineered. Check out www.tvfool.com for some great info on properly designing a system. Also, avsforum.com has some great info.

VLM9• 13 years ago

Lots of VHF broadcasters switching to UHF as part of the transition? Not all have done so, but "many" have.

All things being equal, an ancient coax cable with X milliliters of water contamination or Y amount of corrosion will have more loss at UHF than VHF. Pretty much everything is more critical at UHF. Even antenna aiming.

The other way its a problem, which is actually pretty funny, is marketing of "HDTV" antennas where HDTV means UHF only, which works great if all your local broadcasters moved to UHF with the transition; As you can imagine a UHF antenna doesn't work so well if you live in an area with one of the few remaining VHF-Lo band transmitters which you "need".

To say this is a local issue would be an understatement. I'm sure you'd get a better answer from a neighbor than HN.

gvb• 13 years ago

The simplistic answer is that they are cramming a lot more information into less bandwidth. Analog TV resolution was 640 × 480 (approximately)[1] where digital TV is 1920 x 1080 [2]. Digital also aggravates reception issues because it doesn't degrade gracefully. Instead of "snow" and color issues, it goes all blocky and then takes a couple of seconds to resynchronize... if it recovers.

The Shannon–Hartley theorem[3] relates the necessary signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) that is required to cram a given amount if information into a given amount of bandwidth. Digital TV uses a lot of compression to reduce the amount of information that has to be crammed through the pipe and extremely sophisticated encoding to cram a bunch of bits into each symbol (baud[4]), but, at the end of the day, you have to have an adequate S/N ratio (good enough reception) to decode the signal.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC "Each frame is composed of two fields, each consisting of 262.5 scan lines, for a total of 525 scan lines. 483 scan lines make up the visible raster."

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baud

hayksaakian• 13 years ago

Have you tried using a cheap box and rabbit ears? You probably don't need a fancy setup unless you're in a building that blocks reception or MANY miles from a major city.

pasbesoin• 13 years ago

My friend who was (recently passed) a telecommunications engineer made one of those "clothes hanger" antennae and stuck it on the side of his house -- not even high up. Worked a charm. And they're a good 25 - 30 miles from most of the broadcast locations.

He sent me a YouTube link to instructions for one. Not hard to do.

Of course, results vary. But perhaps worth looking into.

paul92902• 13 years ago

Use Aereo.com to watch local broadcasts for 8 bucks a month.

If it's available in your area.

andyl2• 13 years ago

TV is unbearable after abstaining for a few years. The non-stop Viagra ads! Who would let this trash into their house?

dinkumthinkum12• 13 years ago

Because of ads? Isn't that only thing that makes these weekend projects that are basically yet another photo sharing app worth billions of dollars??

_wp3r4• 13 years ago

Except most of the users of those weekend projects do not pay $100 dollars a month to access the site, and then still have ads everywhere.

snogglethorpe2• 13 years ago

It seems like he was also objecting to the character of the ads...

I left the U.S. in the '90s. However I do occasionally see some American TV on trips, and it seems different than what I remember, full of creepy bizarre ads for drugs and the like.

TV ads in the old days obviously weren't great art, and were often annoying, but there seems something palpably ... wrong with the state of things now. "Creepy" seems the best description.

peter303• 13 years ago

I'd say the opposite is happening, depending whether you use the definition of "old tv" or "new tv". Old TV is passive video broadcast from a central source. New TV is screen video of any size from watch to theater wall. People are spending more time than ever glued to their new screens of any type - old tv, movie theater, game boxes, smartphones, tablets, and newest wearable screens. It is said children are spending less time than ever in history playing outdoors or in sports.

massysett• 13 years ago

Exactly. I don't get folks who say they don't watch TV, but then they prattle on about all the stuff they watch on their iPads and Netflix.

_wp3r4• 13 years ago

http://www.scribd.com/doc/140433670/TV-Consumer-Freedom-Act

This is a crazy law to even propose, but the idea behind it should be considered by the cable industry hard and fast.

ChrisNorstrom3• 13 years ago

I wonder if switching from Analog signals to Digital has contributed to this...

Not only do you have to buy the receiver box, which craps out and has a separate remote and interface, but Digital TV has really really terrible reception. I live in a large metro area and even we have tons of problems with reception, I can't image what it's like for people who live out further.

dublinben• 13 years ago

A tiny minority of TV viewers were relying on broadcast both before and after the transition to digital. Those that were, also aren't the same demographic that are not "cutting the cord."

acdha2• 13 years ago

I've gotten the impression that the reverse has been happening: broadcast digital TV removed quality and reduced number of channels as a reason for sticking with cable. I know a number of people here (Washington DC) who've talked about dropping cable TV because they really only used it for live things (e.g. the Olympics, disasters, etc.) and a $20 antenna works well enough for that to make paying an additional $50+ per month completely unappealing.

probably_wrong2• 13 years ago

I'd love to see a correlation between this data and the advent of reality TV. I wouldn't even be surprised if part of this decline is due to the incredibly amount of garbage, Kardashian sisters and Honey Boo Boos on air.

ChrisNorstrom3• 13 years ago

Hm, you may be onto something. It might just be the overall negative tone that TV brings into the home. Negative news, scare techniques, negative culture, negative morals. If people feel like TV is making them unhappy or destroying their family values they're obviously going to leave TV. Same thing goes for the internet.

brownbat2• 13 years ago

"TV is Dying" isn't the crazy part of this article.

It claims people are chucking broadband subscriptions and using tablets and mobile internet, or more often, just free wifi from Starbucks (or neighbors?).

Fascinating. If everyone dropped broadband, TV, and phone lines into the home, what's that world look like?

chc2• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure that part actually is crazy.

They promise a graph showing in hard numbers that broadband subscriptions are down, but never actually provide one. They just provide a graph showing, as best I can tell, that total customers for cable companies are going down. In fact, they confusingly state that customers are moving from cable with broadband to "telco companies like AT&T and Verizon who offer TV as a package with high-speed internet access."

From the description, this apparently isn't referring to mobile Internet, but AT&T U-verse and the like. So high-speed Internet from AT&T doesn't count as broadband on the grounds that they're a telco.

My best guess is that when this whole article is founded on the strange understanding that TV through a cable provider is the only real TV while getting the same content through satellite or what-have-you is "mobile," and cable Internet is "broadband" while anything from a "telco" like AT&T is a totally different thing. A rise of alternative providers is an interesting story, but it's a pretty different story from the one they're trying to tell here where everybody is just taking their iPads to Starbucks and watching cat videos.

brownbat2• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure that part actually is crazy.

Ha, yeah, fair point and reasonable analysis. The dozen misleading graphs that don't quite support his point are looking more suspicious by the minute.

I kind of want to call Jim Edwards and tell him this is an interesting direction for a story, but he should probably chuck this rough draft and start from scratch before someone accidentally puts this on BI's site.

schnable• 13 years ago

Yeah the article is pretty selective in statistics. Time Warner may have lost broadband subscribers, but other cable cos have seen increases in broadband subscribes while television subs decrease. And broadband is MUCH more profitable for cable cos than television because there is no content cost to pay.

On that note, he, and commenters, and saying cable is "killing itself" by raising rates. Subscription rates are actually rising more slowly than the content costs cable cos pay. The content creators are driving this process.

gorner• 13 years ago

The article states:

Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, "The pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever." All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013. That doesn't sound like a huge deal — but it includes internet subscribers, too.

Except the source is another BI article, and _its_ source mentions nothing about Internet subscribers:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-c...

antidaily• 13 years ago

The thought of using Verizon only for all my internet usage frightens me.

jhallenworld• 13 years ago

Heh, we got rid of cable years ago (in favor of Netflix, Amazon, and more and more Hulu+) and when we do see cable, the only channel we seem to watch is International House Hunters on HGTV. It's certainly not worth $60 / month.

VLM9• 13 years ago

One truism of humanity is if you free a person, they try to enslave themselves as hard as they can. Sounds dumb, but its a wise observation of an older guy. Applied thru all aspects of life.

Anyway the relevance to this discussion is as TV dies out, what will be the analogy of the Janet Jackson superbowel half time show? Who will legions of mindless drones mail (email?) complaints to, regarding reddits gonewild showing about 3 square inches more of flesh than you'd see at a beach or the mall? Who will the super-conformists conform to if their holy altar of worship, the TV, goes away?

I guess what I'm saying is a darling of the censored neutered content biz is dying, but that doesn't mean weirdos (or prudes or whatever you want to call them) are going away any time soon.

So aside from this interesting and overlooked observation, whats the likely result of the final death of government censorship? Or will it be the final death...

GhotiFish2• 13 years ago

It will be interesting to watch, for sure. Informing weirdos and prudes that their opinions are irrelevant and they don't matter is one of 4chans specialities. So I'm definitely looking forward to it 20 years down the road.

The tide seems to be that, all things considered, the internet will have free speech. Actual, real free speech.

VLM9• 13 years ago

"Informing weirdos and prudes that their opinions are irrelevant and they don't matter is one of 4chans specialities."

Its hard to imagine politicians not pandering to the prude weirdos or neopuritans or whatever they call themselves and instead embracing 4chan or reddit (or HN?) culture, but maybe its inevitable?

VLM9• 13 years ago

Another interesting aspect of the discussion, not discussed much, is what will the new purpose be for TV?

What I'm getting at is people used to go to movies to see a movie. But thats technologically obsolete and frankly with all the previews and ads and hyper expensive junk food its too offensive to experience. However, movie theaters currently exist, and will exist in the future, solely for younger teens dating / makeout sessions, a social party atmosphere, that kind of stuff. And thats apparently a lower level yet stable and mostly constant line of business.

So what will the TV analogy be after most people no longer watch TV? My guess is sport fanatics (despite the stats showing dramatic declines in watching pro sports). Also I think mindless shovelware while people eat. Propaganda such as religious shows or news reporting? Imagine a world with only three cable channels remain, EWTN, ESPN, and Foxnews.

snogglethorpe2• 13 years ago

"What I'm getting at is people used to go to movies to see a movie. But thats technologically obsolete and frankly with all the previews and ads and hyper expensive junk food its too offensive to experience"

.... in the U.S.

dinkumthinkum12• 13 years ago

Yes, no one goes to a movie theatre to see a movie any more. You definitely know what the world is like. Good job not being simplistic and simply assuming the world fits in whatever bias you have ... :)

11thEarlOfMar• 13 years ago

I am not too worried about the cable companies. They've made the shift from television to Internet and phone just fine.

Television, however, is going through the same metamorphosis that music, retail sales and newspapers are enduring.

I'm not worried about the music industry. They've made the shift from vinyl to cassette to CD to digital, and may owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jobs.

However, newspapers and brick & mortar retail have been decimated.

So the question is, will TV go the way of music? Or newspapers?

Edmond• 13 years ago

Been without cable since 2004..haven't missed it a day...on the other the productivity boost is priceless.

hnriot• 13 years ago

The cable and phone companies need to realize that they are ip providers only in the future. Either get with that picture or die. TV is moving to internet distribution (has moved for many) and mobile phones are computers with a voice modem that's not really needed. Just compare the audio quality of facetime audio to a phone call to appreciate the difference.

Mind you, what do i know, I gave up TV in 1991 - there's just for more to do on the internet.

joars• 13 years ago

I trust these stats because i dont immediately see conclusive proof of the simplistic headline.

kephra• 13 years ago

Some points from Europe:

Germany is now forcing to pay every household for state TV propaganda, even those who do not own or watch TV.

Greek instead closed state TV stations, because they can not afford them.

6thSigma• 13 years ago

With the NBA and NFL starting to allow online streaming of their games, I am seeing less and less reasons to keep my cable. Netflix, Hulu, NBA League Pass, and NFL Sunday Ticket would cover 90% of my cable consumption. The other 10%, HBO, is rumored to be considering a standalone subscription service.

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

This is why it baffles me, day in and day out without fail everyone speculates Apple are going to revolutionise TV with Apple TV. Television is a dying medium, I download and consume all of my media on my phone and computer. The only time I ever use my TV is when I want to watch downloaded content on a larger screen and copy it to a USB drive to watch on my TV. Good riddance.

jredwards• 13 years ago

The day Netflix signs a deal to stream NFL games is the day TV finally dies.

cybp• 13 years ago

Good at lying with statistics. The plots don't say what the text does. Non-zero y axis makes tiny effects look big. Worst culprit are the age plots, which show retirees watching more tv than young'uns. It doesn't change over time, but text claims youngsters do not do tv.

clarebear• 13 years ago

When we stayed in a hotel and my preschool kids were subjected to cable, they were confused and angry. Why couldn't they choose the program they wanted? And on e they found a program that was acceptable, why did it keep stopping? They actually thought we were punishing them with commercials and could not figure out what they were doing wrong. Interesting to see it through their eyes.

dinkumthinkum12• 13 years ago

These were preschool kids right? Confused and angry ... Is that uncommon for preschool aged kids? What other kinds of things can we learn about the world based on these data points ... ? I feel like there is a Malcolm Gladwell book here ...

duskwuff• 13 years ago

The bit at the end about people "cutting the cord" on broadband and going to free wifi rings... not just false, really, but simply ridiculous. To a reasonable approximation, nobody is relying on Starbucks (or whatever) for their Internet access - that's simply not a substitute.

somberi• 13 years ago

The Sandra-Bullock movie "Gravity" cost as much to produce as the Mars mission recently launched by India (~ 100Million USD).

Gravity made 500Million USD.

Something does not sit right.

dinkumthinkum12• 13 years ago

Shh ... We are supposed to believe no one goes to the theatre any more because that's the lamestream media or something ... Right, that's the correct echo chamber view?

goggles99• 13 years ago

I used to watch a fair amount of TV, now I have three young kids and watch less than an hour per month. I wonder what I actually got out of those 30+ hours a week of watching television. What a waste of life. how many people on their death bed say... I wish I had watched more television. Some people are going to spend 1/4 of their life watching television. Seriously? think of what you could have done with that time.

Online gaming is becoming as much of a time drain. It at least does not have as much of a social, political and interpersonal agenda as television (though it does warp you mind in other ways) but still, what a waste of precious life.

What would the world look like if television was gone tomorrow. No more marketers and hidden agenda writers and directors programming your mind subtlety.

What happened to board games? getting together with family and friends to socialize? I would like to see numbers on what television, media, and gaming has replaced (as far as time spent). Eventually, humans won't even act like traditional humans. All social skills and collaboration, perhaps even empathy one day will be far diminished or lost. Our very humanity.

See how much your demographic watches (or is influenced/brainwashed by): http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2013-10-21/less-time-i...

brent_noorda• 13 years ago

Me: Cancel my TV service. I'm going to watch TV over the internet.

Comcast: OK... Done. We'll miss you as a Comcast customer. Will there be anything else?

Me: Yes. Please sign me up for internet service. I'm going to watch TV over the internet.

Comcast: OK... Done. We'd like to welcome you as a Comcast customer.

belorn• 13 years ago

In Sweden, the Swedish national public TV has simply defined that any computer, be that one without a graphic card or software, is an TV.

So the stats are going up up and up!

mrweasel• 13 years ago

Everyone seems focused on TV shows. I'm not really concerned about TV shows, it's the news I'm interested in.

Granted, the news in TV, radio and most newspapers aren't any good as it stands now, but if we keep moving from TV to on-demand services like Netflix, funding serious news broadcasting will become an issue.

I'm not sure how it works in the US, but in many European countries, like the UK, Germany and Denmark, the public are required to pay for public broadcasting). This in part is suppose to pay for news and journalists... In reality it pays for crappy talentshows.

Still what's the model for serious news broadcasting going to be in the future? The models that seems to "work" is having a rich sheikh pay (Al Jazeera) or government funded (RT.TV / Press TV / France 24). This doesn't give you the best of news, but then again neither does ad funded news live CNN.

aestra• 13 years ago

TV news grates on me.

Here's a good reason:

http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/why-tv-news-is-a-waste-of-human-...

leoplct• 13 years ago

Do you think that, if there is a tool that scans all channels through looking for something good to watch, things could be better?

normloman• 13 years ago

We already have that. It's called TiVo Suggestions.

People aren't cord cutting because they can't find anything good on. People are cord cutting because their cable bill is too high.

ctdonath• 13 years ago

"Our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be,"

One word: Kodak.

(They had no idea customers would turn to digital photography so fast and so completely. World-dominating brand now defunct.)

TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

Related Stories