If you don’t watch much TV it is much cheaper to watch TV online. The point where I think people could run into a problem is sports and award shows (though award shows are quickly migrating online in “highlights”), but other than that, you really don’t need a cable package!
i totally agree with you about packages being too expensive and that we more productive without the tv and that we can still survive without tv. there’s one problem though: kids still LOVE tv.
i don’t think advertisements or audio streaming has to do with radio’s decline though. i don’t even think decline is a general (by which i mean worldwide) trend. i turn on the radio to listen to programming, but less than one month i moved to canada i stopped listening to the radio because (compared to where i came from) i just could find NO PROGRAMMING. i think this is a better match to the “you turn on the tv and says nothing’s on when you’ve got 100 channels” thing.
I’m not American so I can’t really comment on the specific situation in the US. Over here, I get TV for fairly cheap (~$11 per month) so I keep it to watch some sports every now and then.
What I can imagine is that cable companies are looking to avoid customizing packages (because they can make a lump sum by offering a pretty big base package) even though it can be what people would like. If you’d have people customize or make pay-per-view the norm, they might not end up with as much revenue.
Having said that, the behavior that people are demonstrating (like TiVO’ing) does put more pressure on live TV being the advertising carrier. Especially in combination with social media, they can provide more value with their triple play.
Great points Ken. I think you are right that cable companies simply can’t be profitable unless they offer bulk channels. Which is why the model will be replaced in a few years, same as newspapers.
Live TV should be an advertising carrier, but it’s also the hardest one to pull off since you can’t “pause” live action to take a break for a commercial. Also, Live TV will soon be streamed online. What then for cable companies? Will they just become internet providers?
I’m sure that cable companies will have to move to the most dominant platform, which will be the Web.
However, they’ll have to be clever in their service. If indeed people will get more accustomed to streaming, then this is going to present bandwidth challenges (especially with HD content). I think new business models will surface based on these challenges.
It might be so that a premium will be placed on streaming (downloading and watching at the same time) versus a lower price for caching (i.e. content is downloaded during down/idle times to be viewed at a later moment) and an even lower price for cable TV to still make it attractive and maintain the classic advertising model.
But I have no idea how this will affect services like Hulu and Netflix, since they kinda piggy-back on the infrastructure that ISPs provide.
Interesting points Ken. My thoughts are that cable companies are *letting* services for delivery of these shows get fragmented (Hulu, iTunes, even individual websites like NBC or The CW), so that by the time cable does get online, it will be too late.
No matter what, I see them having to go to a la carte services. The alternatives are just too cheap to pass up. That’s for sharing such interesting thoughts on this topic.
I love using my PVR (same as TIVO) to skip by the commercials and only watch the content of my show. I’ve switched to satellite to take advantage of time shifting which is really the bain of any TV network.
I used to work at Global Television and there were many times our news director would rant that time shifting will be the death of TV networks. Personally I love it, but I can see how it could change the whole game for networks selling advertising. Suddenly it’s way less valuable if you can’t guarantee people are watching their favorite programs on your station.
But I have to say, watching live TV on another city’s station to take a program in earlier or later than it airs on my local stations is annoying when you can’t skip over the foreign commercials.
Alison, your experiences are interesting. I agree that the real-time web is playing a role here. This year, a couple sites posted Superbowl commercials within seconds of them airing live. On the flip side, most broadcast advertising is ineffective because of Tivo, which is all about watching at your convenience and not when the content is first available.
It seems like whether speed is important or not, both newer technology (like Tivo) and the internet are chipping away at cable TV. What do you think?
As I get ready to move I am 100% confident I won’t miss TV at all – I barely spend any time watching it right now. I agree with you that a lot of what’s available online works out just fine.
I could see myself getting specific channels “on-demand” online (only if they happen to have reasonable pricing structure, taking into account that they are single channels) such as The Discovery Channel & The History Channel.
Another “side-benefit” to giving up TV – traditionally people buy TV sets to watch their TV. Since that’s not something that I am interested in, by not needing the TV tuner part (that gets all the channels) I can afford a nice projector instead that I can use to watch movies and as the output of my computer when I’d like to see something from the web on the big screen.
I agree completely. There are some things I’m missing (like the Olympics right now) but I don’t feel any loss at all. I would definitely purchase a specific channel on-demand from online, because I literally only watch 3-5 on a regular basis.
What’s interesting is that cable companies used to be middle men. Now there’s an opportunity for individual networks to market their shows directly to consumers. Cable companies are missing out on the opportunity to prevent this from happening by not moving quickly enough.
Exactly, and they’re not getting that attempting to fight this change isn’t going to end well for them either (clearly they missed the whole music industry episode).
http://www.hulu.com/ VS http://www.boxee.tv/ comes to mind – they are “okay” with you seeing a little bit of content inside your web browser on your laptop but as soon as they found out that some people have Boxee playing Hulu content on a bigger screen they freaked out and blocked Boxee because suddenly they feared that it would cannibalize regular TV subscriptions instead of realizing that a lot of the people playing things from Hulu had long abandoned traditional TV subscriptions in the first place.
That’s really interesting information – I did not know that was happening. I completely agree that anyone watching TV online has abandoned TV subscriptions already.
I fully plan to watch TV on demand on my regular TV set, as soon as I can get it up. With all the entertainment options available these days, there is just no need for a large cable bill. That would be like selling a carton of 100 books and not offering each one separately… which we all see is nuts
Hey Monica…So if the email address gives you any indication, I work in radio. That being said, I love what you had to say about the decline of TV. It seems the only people who do NOT believe that, are car dealership owners and agencies that make their money off TV production who steer thier clients toward the medium that makes the AGENCY the most money.
Regardless, In Dallas…mp3 penetration is only at 6% for in car listenening…and Dallas traffic isn’t going away…so until you can pause or fast forward live radio its not going to die! On the otherhand, CBS Radio has gotten a lot smarter. Our streaming listening has more than doubled from 2008 to 2009, and so far 2010 is the same. Plus CBS Radio also partnered with AOL Radio, Yahoo Launchcast and now Vevo.com as well as last.fm. Goes to show that we know where a lot of people are beginning to go and will continue to go for their media.
One thing that I really liked where your statistics on Cable Television. Could you PLEASE tell me where you got those statistics from??? Thank you!
Josh, I agree that the main reason radio has not seen this is because of car rides; however, when I have a short commute I don’t listen to radio. I applaud CBS Radio for seeing the trend and forming those partnerships now.
I will get back to you on the Cable TV statistics – don’t have them in front of me, but I included them in my book! so I know I have the source somewhere.
I listen to http://www.pandora.com/ when I am on a road-trip … then again, I am fairly sure that I’m a part of a minority at this time, as far as that goes.
Let me say that this one thing changed my life from being a ‘consumption whore’ as I call it. I would love to talk to Penelope about this and change her mind .
TV is a one way stream that shouts info at us and we never write down what we are hearing (usually it isn’t worth a shit anyways.) We even do this with Blogs nowadays and we read the top 50 things we need to do to change our lives and then we open another tab, and another tab, and another tab, etc until we can’t retain anything. TV is that on crack. We never act on anything we hear from tv (maybe someone has but not me.) My life changed when I stopped.
1. Watching Desperate Housewives
2. Playing Call of Duty 4 19 hours a day and never getting anywhere.
3. Watching Shamwow and Oxyclean infomercials.
4. Consuming information like a whore and not sharing what I learned (TV)
5. Sitting on my ass watching TV.
6. Eating bacon and sausage while sitting on my ass watching TV
7. This list could go on forever.
I guess you could say I am ‘passionate’ about this post and so glad you shared. It really has changed my life (no tv plus buying a notebook) Read this article by Tim Ferris on indexing and how it is not about taking notes but our ability to find them later. Take notes on blog posts, books, anything that you could reread in 10 minutes and slow down to think, act, do what you are writing.
I think I should end this rant and go watch last weeks episode of Desperate Housewives on hulu. (remember that most of the TV shit is online anyways and if you really need to watch it then watch it there. Why would you pay 2 cable bills for 1 cable coming into your house? Dumb.)
Penelope, even without TV I still heard about Balloon Boy. Don’t worry, the important news will find you.
Thank you so much for your comment. You are completely right of course. It is amazing to me that I’ve never in my life thought to take notes over something I’ve watched on TV, yet constantly do so with books, speeches, and podcasts.
I realize TV is purely entertainment for most people, but I’ve found that I don’t miss much by not having it. I get my news from Twitter when I want it, and I assume that all important stuff will bubble to the top. I don’t spend as much time worrying about what celebrities are doing, but instead focus on building my own career and doing more with my time.
I agree, it is changing my life to not be a consumption whore. There is nothing wrong with TV specifically, because everyone should choose what they want to do with their time – my gripe with TV is that it usually doesn’t help you to consciously choose how you spend your time.
Michele – I have to agree – advertisers will need to get creative as the stream of media goes on demand. In my book I write specifically about how the Disney channel monetizes – it’s probably one of the few companies that “gets” the shift.
Cameron, I read your post and I agree that podcasts are easier to consume (and probably more valuable to consume) than TV is. I think your point is similar to Shane’s – that you can get more stuff done if you just get away from the TV.
I agree the bundles are on their way out, and I think it’s for the same reason albums aren’t as popular anymore. We live in a world of wanting only the content we want – not paying for extra fluff.
To be honest, cable television itself was a joke all along. The media companies somehow tricked us into paying for content twice and we all just went along with it. Now we’re wise to the media companies’ crap and they’re freaking out because they want to just keep duping us.
I’ve said it many times before – I would LOVE to pay for Entourage by itself, but I cannot justify paying for all of HBO if I’m just going to watch Entourage.
Bundling is great for the cable companies but bad for us consumers. I agree that Hulu is a wonderful service to help the would-be cord cutter… however, Comcast is in process of acquiring a 30% stake in the company.
I had a great boss who pushed me to go past poking holes in the status quo and instead offer up a better idea. Ok… how about us using social media to influence the cable companies to offer a la carte? I shared a bit more the other day on Time.com. http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/03/04/tv-a-la-carte-one-mans-dream/
People have been joining the movement and filling out the petition here: http://tvalacarte.org/
What other steps should we take to enable us to pick our own programming?
I’m late to chime in, but I thought I’d go ahead and pose my question…
I totally agree that the way we’re receiving phone, cable and internet service as “bundles” costs way too much and is leading folks like you and I to switch to a la carte programming via the internet. And while this works for young, single people like myself, it makes me wonder about families. Will they make the same switch? Are families still committed to the 1950s image of mom, dad and kids sitting around the living room watching TV and movies together? Will they just buy cables to connect their laptops to the televisions or LCD monitors they buy?
Good question. I think the internet and cable will blend in the future (as you alluded to). There will be no difference in watching TV on the television versus on the internet.
I recently read a statistic – something like 40% of kids under the age of three (?!) have a TV in their bedroom. Umm… what?! At my parents house, we have something like 6 or 7 TVs – One in each of the 4 bedrooms, one in the living room, one in the kitchen, and one in the garage so we can watch TV outside. Several of them are on any given night because no one wants to watch the same thing – I don’t think the 1950′s image of the family watching TV together is even realistic today.
Curious what everyone else thinks of this though – great topic Keri, and thanks for bringing it up.
Hi Monica..a lot of what you say might make sense to the US & European Audience.Whereas Audience in India(415 million viewers) has a different take on this viz.,:
- Here we can get television in three forms antennae, cable & Direct to home (DTH)
- Cost of antennae option – TV set – $0 – Only free channels/content
- Cost of cable option – TV set + cable set top box + monthly subscription – $4-$5 per month – free and some 300 odd paid channels/content
- Cost of DTH(high def usually) – TV+DTH set top box + monthly subscription – $2-$6 per month – free+paid +premium channels/content
We have a huge house-wife viwership who are soap-opera addicts, and multi task their household chores with TV viewing
We have the usual young teens who are content with the music channels and its content, remember their pocket money can afford them an iPad still
Then we have the working class who enjoy special events like sports, for them its always abt the big LCD TV with a bucket of popcorn n friends jumpin around
Then there r yuppies like me who are satisficed with accessing content online or using gadets(read iPod touch, Tivo, iPad, etc.,)
Also note, cost of Internet per month in India – $11
Thanks so much for the comment! Super interesting to hear from a different perspective. I am speaking basically just about America, where I live, when I talk about the business model cable companies are using being dead in three years.
Man, to hell with the TV industry – I don’t even watch it offline – just a waste of time.
But your points are valid- NBC’s online content (like “Heroes” ) is full of commercials – it’s like tv but only worse ! I wish there was an age where producers actually care about their audience show good related commercials ( like fan-related merchandise)
Good websites already to that. Mars Dorian´s last blog ..Why You need to Be in Flow ! (video)
The extra commercials are frustrating! One thing I like is the cross-promotion with other TV shows on the network. Watch the Disney Channel sometime. No real commercials, everything is just a platform for the Disney marketing machine. This is where networks should be looking.
Monica,
I just found your blog through Kawasaki’s tweet of your article “How to Market to Gen Y” http://om.ly/ibUr .
And I haven’t read all the comments above, but what if cable companies leveraged surfing the internet using the TV screen? Think they would still go under?
Yes, they should do that. There are, of course, lots of TVs that already do this. It’s where we are going – the TV will become a computer (it’s already evolving to that).
That said, the point is they have to change their business model. There are leaner companies who are moving forward more quickly than the big cable companies. Also, once internet via TV becomes mainstream, it’s going to open up a lot of competition for programming, and I don’t think cable companies are prepared for that.
My son used to watch TV too much so I took away the TV from his room. Then I found out that he’s now watching TV on his computer Chandra Finley´s last blog ..Television as a PC Screen
Monica O'Brien is the Director of Digital at Fizz and author of the book Social Pollination, which helps businesses leverage social media for crazy growth!
Monica O'Brien is the Director of Digital at Fizz and author of the book Social Pollination, which helps businesses leverage social media for crazy growth!
{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m going to rethink my cable/internet/phone package…and the fact that I watch too much TV. Great post!
If you don’t watch much TV it is much cheaper to watch TV online. The point where I think people could run into a problem is sports and award shows (though award shows are quickly migrating online in “highlights”), but other than that, you really don’t need a cable package!
i totally agree with you about packages being too expensive and that we more productive without the tv and that we can still survive without tv. there’s one problem though: kids still LOVE tv.
i don’t think advertisements or audio streaming has to do with radio’s decline though. i don’t even think decline is a general (by which i mean worldwide) trend. i turn on the radio to listen to programming, but less than one month i moved to canada i stopped listening to the radio because (compared to where i came from) i just could find NO PROGRAMMING. i think this is a better match to the “you turn on the tv and says nothing’s on when you’ve got 100 channels” thing.
ambrose,
One word: Movies. Kids love to watch the same movie 100 times.
I don’t disagree that kids like their TV shows, but most kids are just as easily amused with last season on DVD.
and, of course but i forgot to mention, the result of my stopping listening to the radio is that i stopped buying records too.
I’m not American so I can’t really comment on the specific situation in the US. Over here, I get TV for fairly cheap (~$11 per month) so I keep it to watch some sports every now and then.
What I can imagine is that cable companies are looking to avoid customizing packages (because they can make a lump sum by offering a pretty big base package) even though it can be what people would like. If you’d have people customize or make pay-per-view the norm, they might not end up with as much revenue.
Having said that, the behavior that people are demonstrating (like TiVO’ing) does put more pressure on live TV being the advertising carrier. Especially in combination with social media, they can provide more value with their triple play.
Great points Ken. I think you are right that cable companies simply can’t be profitable unless they offer bulk channels. Which is why the model will be replaced in a few years, same as newspapers.
Live TV should be an advertising carrier, but it’s also the hardest one to pull off since you can’t “pause” live action to take a break for a commercial. Also, Live TV will soon be streamed online. What then for cable companies? Will they just become internet providers?
I’m sure that cable companies will have to move to the most dominant platform, which will be the Web.
However, they’ll have to be clever in their service. If indeed people will get more accustomed to streaming, then this is going to present bandwidth challenges (especially with HD content). I think new business models will surface based on these challenges.
It might be so that a premium will be placed on streaming (downloading and watching at the same time) versus a lower price for caching (i.e. content is downloaded during down/idle times to be viewed at a later moment) and an even lower price for cable TV to still make it attractive and maintain the classic advertising model.
But I have no idea how this will affect services like Hulu and Netflix, since they kinda piggy-back on the infrastructure that ISPs provide.
Interesting points Ken. My thoughts are that cable companies are *letting* services for delivery of these shows get fragmented (Hulu, iTunes, even individual websites like NBC or The CW), so that by the time cable does get online, it will be too late.
No matter what, I see them having to go to a la carte services. The alternatives are just too cheap to pass up. That’s for sharing such interesting thoughts on this topic.
I love using my PVR (same as TIVO) to skip by the commercials and only watch the content of my show. I’ve switched to satellite to take advantage of time shifting which is really the bain of any TV network.
I used to work at Global Television and there were many times our news director would rant that time shifting will be the death of TV networks. Personally I love it, but I can see how it could change the whole game for networks selling advertising. Suddenly it’s way less valuable if you can’t guarantee people are watching their favorite programs on your station.
But I have to say, watching live TV on another city’s station to take a program in earlier or later than it airs on my local stations is annoying when you can’t skip over the foreign commercials.
Alison, your experiences are interesting. I agree that the real-time web is playing a role here. This year, a couple sites posted Superbowl commercials within seconds of them airing live. On the flip side, most broadcast advertising is ineffective because of Tivo, which is all about watching at your convenience and not when the content is first available.
It seems like whether speed is important or not, both newer technology (like Tivo) and the internet are chipping away at cable TV. What do you think?
As I get ready to move I am 100% confident I won’t miss TV at all – I barely spend any time watching it right now. I agree with you that a lot of what’s available online works out just fine.
I could see myself getting specific channels “on-demand” online (only if they happen to have reasonable pricing structure, taking into account that they are single channels) such as The Discovery Channel & The History Channel.
Another “side-benefit” to giving up TV – traditionally people buy TV sets to watch their TV. Since that’s not something that I am interested in, by not needing the TV tuner part (that gets all the channels) I can afford a nice projector instead that I can use to watch movies and as the output of my computer when I’d like to see something from the web on the big screen.
I agree completely. There are some things I’m missing (like the Olympics right now) but I don’t feel any loss at all. I would definitely purchase a specific channel on-demand from online, because I literally only watch 3-5 on a regular basis.
What’s interesting is that cable companies used to be middle men. Now there’s an opportunity for individual networks to market their shows directly to consumers. Cable companies are missing out on the opportunity to prevent this from happening by not moving quickly enough.
Exactly, and they’re not getting that attempting to fight this change isn’t going to end well for them either (clearly they missed the whole music industry episode).
http://www.hulu.com/ VS http://www.boxee.tv/ comes to mind – they are “okay” with you seeing a little bit of content inside your web browser on your laptop but as soon as they found out that some people have Boxee playing Hulu content on a bigger screen they freaked out and blocked Boxee because suddenly they feared that it would cannibalize regular TV subscriptions instead of realizing that a lot of the people playing things from Hulu had long abandoned traditional TV subscriptions in the first place.
Nikola,
That’s really interesting information – I did not know that was happening. I completely agree that anyone watching TV online has abandoned TV subscriptions already.
I fully plan to watch TV on demand on my regular TV set, as soon as I can get it up. With all the entertainment options available these days, there is just no need for a large cable bill. That would be like selling a carton of 100 books and not offering each one separately… which we all see is nuts
Hey Monica…So if the email address gives you any indication, I work in radio. That being said, I love what you had to say about the decline of TV. It seems the only people who do NOT believe that, are car dealership owners and agencies that make their money off TV production who steer thier clients toward the medium that makes the AGENCY the most money.
Regardless, In Dallas…mp3 penetration is only at 6% for in car listenening…and Dallas traffic isn’t going away…so until you can pause or fast forward live radio its not going to die! On the otherhand, CBS Radio has gotten a lot smarter. Our streaming listening has more than doubled from 2008 to 2009, and so far 2010 is the same. Plus CBS Radio also partnered with AOL Radio, Yahoo Launchcast and now Vevo.com as well as last.fm. Goes to show that we know where a lot of people are beginning to go and will continue to go for their media.
One thing that I really liked where your statistics on Cable Television. Could you PLEASE tell me where you got those statistics from??? Thank you!
Josh, I agree that the main reason radio has not seen this is because of car rides; however, when I have a short commute I don’t listen to radio. I applaud CBS Radio for seeing the trend and forming those partnerships now.
I will get back to you on the Cable TV statistics – don’t have them in front of me, but I included them in my book! so I know I have the source somewhere.
I listen to http://www.pandora.com/ when I am on a road-trip … then again, I am fairly sure that I’m a part of a minority at this time, as far as that goes.
I usually listen to my music from my iPhone. I just hate flipping through radio stations.
Ok so…. AWESOME!
Let me say that this one thing changed my life from being a ‘consumption whore’ as I call it. I would love to talk to Penelope about this and change her mind
.
TV is a one way stream that shouts info at us and we never write down what we are hearing (usually it isn’t worth a shit anyways.) We even do this with Blogs nowadays and we read the top 50 things we need to do to change our lives and then we open another tab, and another tab, and another tab, etc until we can’t retain anything. TV is that on crack. We never act on anything we hear from tv (maybe someone has but not me.) My life changed when I stopped.
1. Watching Desperate Housewives
2. Playing Call of Duty 4 19 hours a day and never getting anywhere.
3. Watching Shamwow and Oxyclean infomercials.
4. Consuming information like a whore and not sharing what I learned (TV)
5. Sitting on my ass watching TV.
6. Eating bacon and sausage while sitting on my ass watching TV
7. This list could go on forever.
I guess you could say I am ‘passionate’ about this post and so glad you shared. It really has changed my life (no tv plus buying a notebook) Read this article by Tim Ferris on indexing and how it is not about taking notes but our ability to find them later. Take notes on blog posts, books, anything that you could reread in 10 minutes and slow down to think, act, do what you are writing.
Here is the post http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/12/05/how-to-take-notes-like-an-alpha-geek-plus-my-2600-date-challenge/
I think I should end this rant and go watch last weeks episode of Desperate Housewives on hulu. (remember that most of the TV shit is online anyways and if you really need to watch it then watch it there. Why would you pay 2 cable bills for 1 cable coming into your house? Dumb.)
Penelope, even without TV I still heard about Balloon Boy. Don’t worry, the important news will find you.
-Shane Mac
@shanemacsays
http://www.shanemac.me
A man trying not to be a whore.
Shane,
Thank you so much for your comment. You are completely right of course. It is amazing to me that I’ve never in my life thought to take notes over something I’ve watched on TV, yet constantly do so with books, speeches, and podcasts.
I realize TV is purely entertainment for most people, but I’ve found that I don’t miss much by not having it. I get my news from Twitter when I want it, and I assume that all important stuff will bubble to the top. I don’t spend as much time worrying about what celebrities are doing, but instead focus on building my own career and doing more with my time.
I agree, it is changing my life to not be a consumption whore. There is nothing wrong with TV specifically, because everyone should choose what they want to do with their time – my gripe with TV is that it usually doesn’t help you to consciously choose how you spend your time.
Thanks for the comment Shane!
Love the post and agree with everything. I really only watch TV because it’s convenient and easy. It’s not really fun at all.
I actually wrote a similar post about the benefits of switching from TV to podcasts.
http://www.econapps.com/2009/08/how-podcasts-are-replacing-tv-in-my-life/
ROFLMAO Shane you are such a riot.
Ok I gave up cable well over a year ago. Who has time or the dollars for that when you are a start up business.
I would much rather spend that money to buy healthy organic nutritious food.
Besides, if everyone would spend time reading books again we might have more informed and creative minds in America…Just Sayin’
Also with more folks working from home radio is on it’s way out too!
Podcast, internet radio, blogs…the sooner my local businesses “get it” the better off they will be during the shift-shazam
Michele – I have to agree – advertisers will need to get creative as the stream of media goes on demand. In my book I write specifically about how the Disney channel monetizes – it’s probably one of the few companies that “gets” the shift.
Cameron, I read your post and I agree that podcasts are easier to consume (and probably more valuable to consume) than TV is. I think your point is similar to Shane’s – that you can get more stuff done if you just get away from the TV.
Thanks for the comment!
I agree the bundles are on their way out, and I think it’s for the same reason albums aren’t as popular anymore. We live in a world of wanting only the content we want – not paying for extra fluff.
To be honest, cable television itself was a joke all along. The media companies somehow tricked us into paying for content twice and we all just went along with it. Now we’re wise to the media companies’ crap and they’re freaking out because they want to just keep duping us.
I’ve said it many times before – I would LOVE to pay for Entourage by itself, but I cannot justify paying for all of HBO if I’m just going to watch Entourage.
I have considered it but I watch too many sports in HD so I just cut down my package as low as I could. Home phone, been against that for a long time!
We must have gone to the same grad school
Bundling is great for the cable companies but bad for us consumers. I agree that Hulu is a wonderful service to help the would-be cord cutter… however, Comcast is in process of acquiring a 30% stake in the company.
I had a great boss who pushed me to go past poking holes in the status quo and instead offer up a better idea. Ok… how about us using social media to influence the cable companies to offer a la carte? I shared a bit more the other day on Time.com. http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/03/04/tv-a-la-carte-one-mans-dream/
People have been joining the movement and filling out the petition here: http://tvalacarte.org/
What other steps should we take to enable us to pick our own programming?
I’m late to chime in, but I thought I’d go ahead and pose my question…
I totally agree that the way we’re receiving phone, cable and internet service as “bundles” costs way too much and is leading folks like you and I to switch to a la carte programming via the internet. And while this works for young, single people like myself, it makes me wonder about families. Will they make the same switch? Are families still committed to the 1950s image of mom, dad and kids sitting around the living room watching TV and movies together? Will they just buy cables to connect their laptops to the televisions or LCD monitors they buy?
What do you think?
Good question. I think the internet and cable will blend in the future (as you alluded to). There will be no difference in watching TV on the television versus on the internet.
I recently read a statistic – something like 40% of kids under the age of three (?!) have a TV in their bedroom. Umm… what?! At my parents house, we have something like 6 or 7 TVs – One in each of the 4 bedrooms, one in the living room, one in the kitchen, and one in the garage so we can watch TV outside. Several of them are on any given night because no one wants to watch the same thing – I don’t think the 1950′s image of the family watching TV together is even realistic today.
Curious what everyone else thinks of this though – great topic Keri, and thanks for bringing it up.
Hi Monica..a lot of what you say might make sense to the US & European Audience.Whereas Audience in India(415 million viewers) has a different take on this viz.,:
- Here we can get television in three forms antennae, cable & Direct to home (DTH)
- Cost of antennae option – TV set – $0 – Only free channels/content
- Cost of cable option – TV set + cable set top box + monthly subscription – $4-$5 per month – free and some 300 odd paid channels/content
- Cost of DTH(high def usually) – TV+DTH set top box + monthly subscription – $2-$6 per month – free+paid +premium channels/content
We have a huge house-wife viwership who are soap-opera addicts, and multi task their household chores with TV viewing
We have the usual young teens who are content with the music channels and its content, remember their pocket money can afford them an iPad still
Then we have the working class who enjoy special events like sports, for them its always abt the big LCD TV with a bucket of popcorn n friends jumpin around
Then there r yuppies like me who are satisficed with accessing content online or using gadets(read iPod touch, Tivo, iPad, etc.,)
Also note, cost of Internet per month in India – $11
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Regards,
Deepak
Deepak,
Thanks so much for the comment! Super interesting to hear from a different perspective. I am speaking basically just about America, where I live, when I talk about the business model cable companies are using being dead in three years.
Man, to hell with the TV industry – I don’t even watch it offline – just a waste of time.
But your points are valid- NBC’s online content (like “Heroes” ) is full of commercials – it’s like tv but only worse ! I wish there was an age where producers actually care about their audience show good related commercials ( like fan-related merchandise)
Good websites already to that.
Mars Dorian´s last blog ..Why You need to Be in Flow ! (video)
Mars,
The extra commercials are frustrating! One thing I like is the cross-promotion with other TV shows on the network. Watch the Disney Channel sometime. No real commercials, everything is just a platform for the Disney marketing machine. This is where networks should be looking.
Monica,
I just found your blog through Kawasaki’s tweet of your article “How to Market to Gen Y” http://om.ly/ibUr .
And I haven’t read all the comments above, but what if cable companies leveraged surfing the internet using the TV screen? Think they would still go under?
Charla,
Yes, they should do that. There are, of course, lots of TVs that already do this. It’s where we are going – the TV will become a computer (it’s already evolving to that).
That said, the point is they have to change their business model. There are leaner companies who are moving forward more quickly than the big cable companies. Also, once internet via TV becomes mainstream, it’s going to open up a lot of competition for programming, and I don’t think cable companies are prepared for that.
Thanks for the comment!
My son used to watch TV too much so I took away the TV from his room. Then I found out that he’s now watching TV on his computer
Chandra Finley´s last blog ..Television as a PC Screen
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