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Posted on 11/24/2013 1:13:05 PM PST by JerseyanExile
The TV business is having its worst year ever. Audience ratings have collapsed: Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Citi Research.
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.
Broadband internet was supposed to benefit from the end of cable TV, but it hasn't.
In all, about 5 million people ended their cable and broadband subs between the beginning of 2010 and the end of this year.
People are unplugging.
Time Warner Cable, for instance, lost 306,000 TV subscribers in Q3, and 24,000 broadband web subscribers, too.
And Tom Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications, told Wall Street analysts he was "surprised" that 1.3 million of his 5.5 million customers don't want TV — just broadband internet. "Our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be," he said.
The following charts show the evidence that cable TV is dying, and that people are also unplugging from broadband internet service.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Good riddance
Radio, tv, newspapers, magazines, record labels, all in a downward spiral.
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As government at all levels are sucking the public dry, there is less and less disposable income left.
Captain obvious rules !
We just dropped Netflix. I am about to drop my phone. No money.
I neither watch TV nor go to a cinema. There is nothing attractive coming out of Hollywood today.
I’m nearing two years without cable.
I have loads of DVDs, Hulu, worldwide internet radio (and of course, FR)...and there are many more high-tech options out there.
I thought I’d miss it. Now I thank God for ditching it.
Two things: TV is mostly garbage and people simply don’t have the money to pay for cable and broadband.
I don’t watch TV anymore. I miss sports, but I can see all the highlights. I have gained hours of life
I spent my entire career working in TV, but back then we had a secret recipe that we took with us when we were “eased” into retirement. It was called “producing shows that people want to see”.
200 channels and nothing on.
Its funny. Several generations of sitcoms and TV dramas have come and gone and I have no idea. Waves of TV stars who, if they sat down next to me at Denny’s I’d have no idea who they are, except if I recognize their face from the cover of Enquirer at the checkout stand.
I like the fact that they take up no room in my head.
Some of this is because the programming sucks, and there is more competition for the home entertainment dollar.
However:
People are out money. They have to cut back on the luxuries and pay TV is going to be one of the first to go.
Even internet can be lived without.
Things are only going to get worse next year when people try to pay for their grossly overpriced “healthcare” insurance.
We are screwed more than most people realize.
Put it on the Liverpool Pathway.
We stopped our cable TV last month and just kept cable Internet. Saving over $100 a month. We get everything we need in a combination of Roku and PC web browser connections. A wireless trackball serves as the “remote” for the PC.
My only tv watching since the 90s has been buying the three seasons of Walking Dead on DVD. I haven't sat down and watched a show since the 90s, or owned a tv since 2004.
The next thing to get cancelled en masse is Sirius..
I only turn the tv on when I lay down at night—and it’s usually to watch something on netflix until I fall asleep.
I’m waiting for the promise made when cable TV was getting started: you pay for cable subscription, so there’ll be no commercials.
Most of the shows in current production suck so hard and are so stupid and not new they’re not worth watching.
There are tons of cop shows all over in current production and syndication and sometimes both. It’s propaganda. The cops see cops doing stuff that’s illegal and they think they ought to be abel to do it. The citizens get duped into submission that the cops can violate their rights.
Then the vacuous comedies and dramadies with zero substance and non-funny funny-ness.
Scripted reality tv and bitchy tv. Let’s all watch what gay men think women ought to look like (next top anorexic boy-looking model) and act like (sex in the city).
Then let’s see how the public-funded stations are shoveling out. some 1970s british comedies, the one guy who travels all over europe and can’t not mention something muslim anywhere he goes, whole bunch of spanish crap and the nightly propaganda news and some pro gay pieces tossed in for good measure. Whoa, how can I not watch this stuff?!?
Some people get some canada channels. If so be prepared for days on end of Flashpoint (canada cop show). ION seems to only run Flashpoint. If they aren’t running Flashpoint, they are running commercials about Flashpoint.
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