Posted on 04/04/2012 9:01:19 AM PDT by servo1969
The rise of streaming television is something I've been covering rather obsessively on my Daily Call Sheet for going on a year now. Not because I have any kind of inside information or data, but because if you connect the dots of the hundreds of various news stories that have been written about the phenomenon, you can see that something seismic is happening.
Bundled cable is evil, and through this evil we are forced to not only pay for dozens and sometimes hundreds of channels we never watch, but we're also forced to pay for and subsidize channels that offend our values: Sundance, MSNBC, PBS, Current TV, OWN... This is un-Amercan. It's welfare and affirmative action combined. A number of these channels would collapse without the evil of bundled cable fees because you can't pay Rachel Maddow's salary on Sham-wow commercials alone. Worse still, these cable packages are absurdly expensive -- especially for those of us old enough to remember when the cost of television was the price of a pair or rabbit ears.
So along comes Netflix and Hulu with the idea of providing -- for less than $10 a month -- a streaming service that allows you to watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it. Better still, there are no commercials. And anyone who has recently watched "Celebrity Apprentice" or anything on the Discovery Channel knows that the length and frequency of commercial interruptions have gotten obscenely out of hand.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Trying to watch the NCAA tournament was absolutely ridiculous. Two minutes of basketball followed by five minutes of commercials.
Anything I want to watch I get off the net. Don’t need cable—they’re worse than the old “Maw Bell” phone company in terms of customer service.
TV providers will change to keep up
but the govt regulations on them make them carry so many of the channels that no one wants to watch anyway.
The religious lobby is very strong and it makes the govt. force the CATV providers carry those channels no one wants to watch. So it flows down if the catv companies carry those then why not carry the others...
its kinda a double edged sword too cause the CATV companies are the primary provider of High speed internet..
IMO streaming is over-rated because the quality is mediocre. However, paying a lot for channels one never watches is a terrible idea; and it is costing the cable/satellite companies in this economy. They need to get into a la carte programming.
But what about sports like college football? You can’t get those games without satellite or cable. That’s mostly what I watch.
You got that right John.
TV used to be "free".
Now they got all the tax paying peon to pay to watch their commercials, which have already been paid for.
45 years ago, they told ya it would all be commercial free, for a small fee.
it's one of the biggest con jobs ever.
There are 100 million Cable TV subscribers in North America. There’s a ways to go before cord cutters make a significant dent in this. When you can get the full gamut of live sports without cable, then you will see a bigger number opting out. I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future.
See #7.
The mob could only dream of running this kind of racket.
They are about to lose another one... Me!
We are checking out Antennas so we can get our football games. Once we get them installed we are dropping Time Warner TV cable but will keep their Internet.
The raised our bill over 600 bucks a year. I'm not paying that when I can get all the same stuff by using Hulu, Netflix and Amazon for a sixth of what Time Warner Charges me a month for TV.
I believe “a la carte” hasn’t been implemented due to federal regulations. Congress has poked at it with a stick a few times, but nothing’s been done. At least we finally banned incandescent bulbs!
Good for you. Cable TV is one of the biggest rip offs in American history.
See #7.
Just like the newspapers. The cable company bravely keeps putting crap on the tv and wondering why nobody is watching it.
Not to mention they stick you with a contract you can’t get out of with out a fee. Or they say they can raise the rates when ever they want to during that contract period. I no longer sign anything that lets the supplier just change rates when they want to. Credit cards, cell phones and cable are the big ones that do this. If I can’t get a contract that I can stop or lock in a fee then it is not for me.
Yes it is!
They are plunking big on sports, because it’s the one thing that you can’t get easily someplace else.
You bet, we had cable for a couple years, until we figured out we were being robbed and swindled in broad day light.
Heck, I deleted Oprah for years!
And there is part of our problem. Nothing is free, never was, never will be.
Not TV, not housing, not cars, not energy, and damn sure not our freedom.
Yep!
Our home has not had Direct TV for 4 years. We are 100% Hulu, Crackle, Classic Cinema Online, and Redbox.
We were watching Direct TV one day and the commercials came on. After 8 minutes of spam my husband looked at me and asked, “What the heck were we watching again?” and when I couldn’t remember either, we cancled it!
The funny thing is, the next week we got insane offers in the mail to reconnect for a serious monthly discount! We still get them.
My suggestion is even if you are not planning to leave Direct TV, call them and tell them that you want to. I bet they offer you a discount right there on the spot. Its such a rip off and they know it!
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