TV Networks going the way of Newspapers?

Business Insider ^ | 6/7/2012 | Henry Blodget

[djone]

Don't Mean To Be Alarmist, But The TV Business May Be Starting To Collapse, We almost never watch television shows when they are broadcast anymore We rarely watch shows with ads, even on a DVR We watch a lot of TV and movie content, but always on demand and almost never with ads We get our news from the Internet, article by article, clip by clip. The only time we watch TV news live is when there's a crisis or huge event happening somewhere.

[djone]

"Networks" are completely meaningless. We don't know or care which network owns the rights to a show or where it was broadcast. The only question that's relevant is whether it's available on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or iTunes. This means that one of the key traditional "businesses" of TV--the network--is obsolete. The majority of what we pay our cable company is wasted. We get broadband Internet from our cable company, and we use that constantly. But we also get 500 channels that we almost never watch, along with a couple (HBO, Tennis Channel) that we pay extra for and do watch occasionally. We rarely watch TV ads, and when we do, we're usually doing something else at the same time--like typing. Also, the ads seem startlingly intrusive, because we're not used to them.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/tv-business-collapse-2012-6#ixzz1x8dtAphd

[pabianice]

People like large screens and comfortable surroundings. Anyone who has watched a TV show on a crappy 15 inch monitor, surrounded by noise, knows this.

[HChampagne]

I do not agree with this article. My household watches the local news at 5pm (CST) on a local CBS affiliate. Then we are too lazy to change the channel at 5:30 so we watch CBS Evening News and then we watch the local news again at 6. The local FOX station is not set up in this configuration. Yes, I am irresponsible but it is what......

[stuartcr]

We watch tv and get the paper delivered. Most people I know do too.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“Don’t Mean To Be Alarmist, But The TV Business May Be Starting To Collapse.”

Does not compute. Why would I be alarmed? Tingling with anticipation, perhaps — but, not alarmed.

[dfwgator]

I tend to watch the stuff that isn’t for kids on the computer, so my kids can come into the room without me having to scramble to change the channel.

[dfwgator]

Network News still dwarfs Fox News in terms of viewers.

[BitWielder1]

If they started to deliver honest news casting, business would pick up in an instant.

[stuartcr]

We like the network news for local news.

[hinckley buzzard]

I seldom watch TV except for the occasional disaster coverage. I do enjoy watching CNN and MSNBC when there is an election to gloat over, like Wisconsin. Tuesday night was the best TV of the year so far. I have satellite with a hundred channels and 95% of the time, there's "nothing on."

[OrangeHoof]

It sounds like the author is projecting. The author may live like this (and I know many others that do) but quite a few still watch tv shows, still watch cable shows, still follow news programs, etc.

In 10-20 years, the author may be correct but, right now, the trend is not true although it might soon be.

[Buckeye McFrog]

so we watch CBS Evening News

The last time I actually watched The CBS Evening News I believe I was in my 20's, Walter Cronkite was still the anchor, and I was still operating under the delusion that government might actually be able to do something positive in my life. Have had no use for it since turning that page.

[discostu]

Broadcast networks have issues, largely because their costs are so high and their revenue window so small. Cable networks are fine, they make tons of money even if people aren’t watching live with commercials. Cable companies pay to carry them, Netflix pays to carry them. There’s nothing obsolete about the network at all, it’s still the negotiating unit that buys TV shows to lure your eyeballs.

[stuartcr]

Probably so. Lots of young adults don’t care about news at all. I think that is why the computer and Netflix stuff is so popular. No one wants to be exposed to anything unpleasant or bothersome. I imagine it will eventually just be movies and sports. For those that do want news, it will just end up being what they want to hear and agree with.

[discostu]

Tried buying a TV that can’t connect to the internet lately? Grabbing stuff from the net no longer means watching it on your computer. TV, blurays, all the game systems, Roku. The only problem is none of them have web browsers they’re all app based, so anything on the cutting edge you’ll have to wait for. But Netflix, Hulu and YouTube are on almost every device that relates to TVs sold in the last 4 years, and Amazon is on close to half and climbing.

[dfwgator]

For those that do want news, it will just end up being what they want to hear and agree with.

Back to the Future....that's how it used to be with newspapers, people generally subscribed to the paper that espoused their political viewpoints, maybe moreso in Europe than here in the US.

[PATRIOT1876]

Good riddance!

[giotto]

We recently cancelled our satellite service and gave away our only TV. Now if we want to be entertained, we watch Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, PBS.org, or any of the hundreds of other streaming video sites on the web.

Real-time TV is dead. Why would I want to sit and be spoon fed propaganda one sound byte at a time, bored out of my skull, suffering through commercials, when I can sift through articles and videos on the web, scan for information, choosing the sources I trust? Same thing with radio: I don't listen in real time; I download the podcasts, find out what will be covered, fast forward to that part, and skip the commercials.

[discostu]

People don’t care about TV news because they already know what’s happened thanks to the internet. I give my MIL crap whenever she’s in town because she insists on watching the evening news, I tell her everything that they’re going to cover and 3 big stories that happened that they won’t touch. TV and print news are too slow for a world where most folks are connected to the internet most of the time.

[Mr. K]

I can usually only stand about 10 minutes of any show on TV before the barrage of commercials- it makes mecrazy and I almost immediately change channels

oddly, the DVR does NOT prevent me from watchign commercials- if I see something I am interested I often re-play a commercial- which i would have missed completely if it was NOT recorded

Commercials for stuff I am not interested in I skip though- was not going to buy them anyway

I think a neat commerical venture would be a COMMERCIAL CHANNEL where you can traverse through menus or search functions to FIND commercials you want to see

who’s in with me on that? I only need $11 million startup fees

I will promise to air all ‘green’ commercials for a government grant of twice that

PS did anyone else see that GM commericial recently for $36 dollar A MONTH car lease????? Obama is trying to price the others out of business?

I was in the mall the other day and was surrounded by new GM vehicles- SHAME ON THOSE PEOPLE