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Watching TV on web is disrupting cable, broadcast worlds
Miami Herald ^ | January 26, 2013 | Glenn Garvin

Posted on 01/26/2013 3:52:18 PM PST by PJ-Comix

Veteran programmer Rob Barnett recently attended a breakfast meeting of television executives where the talk turned, as it almost always does these days, to “disruption,” the industry buzzword for the way new technology is upsetting the TV applecart. From somewhere down the table, he heard a question: “Has anybody here cut the cord?” — that is, dropped cable service in favor of just watching TV through the Internet? Barnett shrugged and raised his hand. “Mine was the only one,” he recalls. “But when it went up, I saw beads of sweat break out on the foreheads of some of the guys across the table.”

When Barnett and 5,000 or so others gather Monday for the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) convention at the Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach, there will be plenty of sweaty foreheads, some acquisitive smiles and — perhaps most numerous — blank looks of confusion. Not since cable turned the old three-channel TV universe on its head in the late 1970s has the industry been in such a state of disoriented befuddlement.

New technologies that give viewers more say in what they watch, where they watch and how much they pay for it are great for consumers. But they’re inducing a collective nervous breakdown among industry executives, who have to figure out new ways to make money in a business facing serious threats to its traditional sources of revenue — advertising and cable-TV subscriptions.

(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: boycotttimewarner; boycottviacom; cable; cabletv; defundtheleft; enemedia; illusionofchoice; monopoly; pravdamedia; satellitetv; television; veetle; webtv
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But the technological advances in Internet television come at a time when customer grumbling over escalating cable prices has grown to a roar and a younger generation of viewers more comfortable with computers than TVs is starting to set up its own households. The new alignment of attitudes is already taking a toll.

You hear that COMCAST? Lower your rates or you will lose even more people including me!

1 posted on 01/26/2013 3:52:27 PM PST by PJ-Comix
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To: PJ-Comix

Creative destruction, and less central control. What’s not to like?

My teens consider network TV like great-grandpa’s old Victrola.

A screen=internet to them.


2 posted on 01/26/2013 3:54:14 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: PJ-Comix

That is a good thing


3 posted on 01/26/2013 3:56:01 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: Travis McGee

The big problem is that only a few ways to get internet so I am stuck with Comcast at least for that.


4 posted on 01/26/2013 3:57:00 PM PST by PJ-Comix (Beware the Rip in the Space/Time Continuum)
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To: Travis McGee

99% of TV content is pure crap, and no channel is family friendly these days either


5 posted on 01/26/2013 3:57:36 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: PJ-Comix

When the day comes that I can get my favorite channels through the internet or airwaves or however, I dump the cable company. They have enjoyed a government-assisted monopoly for years, and I will gloat when they go out of business.


6 posted on 01/26/2013 4:02:58 PM PST by I want the USA back
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To: GeronL

Find a channel that shows classic films, commercial free.


7 posted on 01/26/2013 4:02:58 PM PST by Jyotishi (Seeking the truth, a fact at a time.)
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To: PJ-Comix

I could see a day where NBC goes the way of Time Magazine. Sold for a dollar.


8 posted on 01/26/2013 4:03:51 PM PST by Track9 (hey Kalid.. kalid.. bang you're dead)
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To: PJ-Comix
Have this puppy hooked up

to this puppy...



The PC is a AMD Dual-Core E300 1.30GHz, 4GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, DVDRW, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, for $288 at Walmart with aNvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti vid card and a Philips 1080P 47 inch LCD.


9 posted on 01/26/2013 4:04:39 PM PST by Dallas59 (America died a little bit more on 11/6/2012)
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To: Jyotishi

I do watch a lot of subtitled Korean shows online, I find them better (broadcast TV in Korea has stricter content standards, so they actually have to have a story- imagine that) than anything on American TV.


10 posted on 01/26/2013 4:06:05 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: PJ-Comix

I don’t get how this will ever be bad for cable companies. If they don’t sell enough cable tv subscriptions they’ll simply raise the cost of internet...it still has to come through their cable. Same with FIOS or other technologies. Or am I missing something?


11 posted on 01/26/2013 4:09:01 PM PST by DouglasKC
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To: I want the USA back

Both COMCAST and Satellite TV have good deals at first but then after about 6 months they jack their prices way up. Anything that gives folks an option to get cheap TV is a plus and maybe COMCAST will be forced to lower their prices.


12 posted on 01/26/2013 4:10:45 PM PST by PJ-Comix (Beware the Rip in the Space/Time Continuum)
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To: PJ-Comix

I want a day when I only have to pay for the channels I want.


13 posted on 01/26/2013 4:11:08 PM PST by bmwcyle (People who do not study history are destine to believe really ignorant statements.)
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To: DouglasKC

I want it to be bad for TV production companies too. All they do is make crap these days.


14 posted on 01/26/2013 4:11:36 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: PJ-Comix; RIghtwardHo; Reaganite Republican; Clintons Are White Trash; HerrBlucher; mgist; ...

Any cable drop outs here? I did, tried Apple TV, a waste of time. Any other alternatives out there?


15 posted on 01/26/2013 4:13:26 PM PST by narses
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To: PJ-Comix; RIghtwardHo; Reaganite Republican; Clintons Are White Trash; HerrBlucher; mgist; ...

Any cable drop outs here? I did, tried Apple TV, a waste of time. Any other alternatives out there?


16 posted on 01/26/2013 4:14:05 PM PST by narses
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To: GeronL
99% of TV content is pure crap, and no channel is family friendly these days either

Agreed. And the commercials go on, and on, and on . . . You would think with the lousy economy the commercials would decrease, but obviously not.

17 posted on 01/26/2013 4:14:33 PM PST by Hardastarboard (The Liberal ruling class hates me. The feeling is mutual.)
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To: narses

So when you dropped your cable, how did you connect to the Internet?


18 posted on 01/26/2013 4:15:12 PM PST by PJ-Comix (Beware the Rip in the Space/Time Continuum)
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To: bmwcyle; KevinDavis; abb

How about only paying for the shows you want? If a conservative outfit started producing a sitcom, a cop show and a science fiction show, how many conservatives would subscribe to watch online?


19 posted on 01/26/2013 4:15:17 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: Dallas59

$99. Plug it in, 2 cables. Goodbye cable tv.

20 posted on 01/26/2013 4:15:58 PM PST by ctdonath2 (End of debate. Your move.)
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