Nielsen: TV Cord Cutting Revolution 'Purely Fiction'

We Cut our Cord in 1992

That was the last time we had a television in the home.

I'll qualify that by noting we were given a TV and a WII some months back. We watch NetFlix on it, via the WII.

We don't have any OtA/cable/satellite/FiOS or other service. In spite of all that we still average 3-4/hrs/day of (no ad) video.

I was slingboxing a customer's underused cable connection for a while, but the commercials were an issue. It wasn't worth if for free.

I'll pay for commercial-free services. However, the idea of paying for commercialized service, seems pretty absurd to me. It's too much like walking around, wearing branded clothing.

NV

Another missing subject line to be added

I completely agree with you. I can't give up the sports and the HD. And beyond that really nothing will change until we get a la carte pricing.

Counting all the locals, sports, kids, discovery, etc, my entire family probably watches a grand total of 30-40 channels of what we get in our "package(s)"...

Great - I'm happy you haven't.

What needs to take place is eliminate the cable company… Companies like BBC, Discovery, NBCU, FOX, etc need to offer realtime online streaming of their cable channels. For a monthly/yearly fee pay us X amount of dollars and work it into devices like ROKU, XBOX, etc. I would consider paying $20 a channel a year. I would choose about 10 or 20 channels and still SAVE OVER HALF of what big cable charged me before I cut the cord.

A system like this would surely allow the content creators more revenue per subscriber than cable does.

They'll cut there cable line and switch to a more convenient model.

Well, I cut my Cable Service... years ago. It wasn't worth it to me. Oh yeah, I really loved those damn ads... 10 minutes of a show, 20 minutes worth of ads..

heh.

I basically just watch movies now, on amazon.com or xboxlive... and rarely at that.

I cut the cord because my bill was well over $100 per month which was ridiculous. I use seetvpc.com now for TV. Why does anyone still pay so much for tv when you can get this.

That's just it. That paltry sum isn't even going to cover production costs, far less keep shareholders happy. This is one of the reasons why online viewing is akin to reruns.

Won't really be viable on a mass scale for a few reasons.

It's inefficient. TV broadcast including cable and satellite is one of the most efficient ways to distribute television programming. One to many, so there's no issue with hogging up bandwidth.

TV programming providers own the internet pipes. Telephone companies (Verizon, AT&T) have made massive investments in becoming cable companies. They won't undermine their own revenue stream.

Unless you want to watch TV on your PC, hooking up the PC to the TV with the standard couch potato fare (remote control, easy to switch off/on, change channels etc) is not easy to do for the average non-techno geek, and frankly a hassle.

Consumers are cheap and TV costs money to produce. Most people want something for nothing or at least not paying cash for something. SO they skip ads and torrent shows. Advertisers pay big bucks and so do cable and satellite operators so that model works better.

The rumors of the cable TV industry's death are greatly exaggerated.

Takes time for new things to catch on, people that are savvy with the internet will find online video the same as cable/sat. Companies like Netflix will become more popular if you have a fixed base pricing. I don't need to watch news on TV I can read the news online. These companies who rely on TV to survive are a bit ignorant now, give it a few years let's see what they start saying then.

Could really catch on if there was some sort of Pay Per Channel setup. I watch very little TV but still have DirecTV + DVR to watch what shows I want without the commercials.

If I can choose what channels I want like TBS / TNT / Cartoon Network / Nick Toons..ect. and only pay like 10$ for those channels then I could see internet video gaining some more attention.

At the current moment online video is no threat to cable or satellite.

Not unless it gets shifted to a la carte. I just want baseball, football, and as many pbs stations that I can get. I don't give a damn about HD, either.
CS

I've gone the Bit torrent route. I only watch 2 or 3 series on a regular basis. Instead of watching them on cable (I still have basic cable TV service and Internet) I download them and watch them later. It's pretty much the same as having a DVR but without the pesky $15/month my cable company wants to charge me.

We do that with Dr.Who. I'm not sure the latest episodes are even aired in our market.

Occasionally I come up with some ancient program that I liked way-back-when; that everyone has forgotten about. BT is a great way to grab a few episodes, so I can wonder why I ever liked it at all.

NV

I don't see any massive migrations from TV as we know it to internet TV. Who in their right mind want's to watch their favorite TV shows or a two hour blockbuster movie in a computer chair on a 19" monitor? It just doesn't make sense.

What makes more sense is for me to come home and sit in my nice comfy reclining sofa with my 52" LCD TV, a cold drink and a bowl of snacks.

Time Warner owns HBO.

To name a few

Any system that is that wrong has zero credibility to me. I knew it was that wrong before those incidents. I don't understand why the networks worship Neilsen when its gross inaccuracy of TV viewership numbers has been proven. How can 1 percent(or whatever % Neilsen families are) of the TV viewing population be an accurate indicator of the other 99% anyway?

They are missing the whole point. Of course no one wants to watch TV on a 19" computer screen except in dire, must see, I don't have a DVR, circumstances.

People aren't cutting the cord for TV over the Internet, they are either leaving TV alltogether or, like me, leaving for free over the air broadcasts.

After the switch to digital broadcasting, when I realized I could get a crystal clear picture over the air with a 30 year old rooftop antenna, it only took me 24 hours to cancel cable. After a brief "what do I consider MUST SEE" analysis told me that CBS and FOX would suffice for my two hours of TV each week, it was a no brainer.

I now get 29 channels over the air, and Hi Def for free is very nice on my 42" LCD. The cable company is spending massive amounts of money to woo me back. I get post cards almost every week - double play, triple play, combo packages, etc. etc. They even call me on the phone with "We can match whatever the other guys are giving you."
I say, "Really - you can match free?". That pretty much ends the conversation when I tell them I am OTA.

It's not for everyone (cable only withdrawal can be difficult) and your milage will vary based on the distance from local transmission towers, but a cheap set of $20.00 rabbit ears at Radio Shack will tell you if it will work for you.

National cancel cable TV(FIOS and SAT) day is approaching - June 30, 2010. Do it now!

The companies that produce the shows on those channels have no interest in allowing you to have access to individual channels.

Who cares about all this. Yawn! This site needs better articles like back in the day.

Yeah you know I take stuff from wal-mart so I don't have to mess with the whole "paying for things" part. It's great.

If he is paying for the cable channels airing the show, and would be well within his right to record them on his own gear anyway, how is downloading them stealing? Just because he isn't paying the $15 a month DVR rental?

you must be forgetting... Comcast just bought NBC. (Though on the opposite end of that spectrum, Time Warner just spun off Time Warner Cable to be a separate company)

real time streaming of channels is getting closer and closer to a reality. It's called TV Everywhere. the only problem you might have is it is used in conjunction with your cable service to authenticate you.

www.virtualphoneline.com

Using that logic I should be able to take DVDs of TV shows from wal-mart without paying since I already paid my cable bill, right? Why should I have to pay twice? The question is if he has access to torrents he has access to Itunes, Amazon, PSN, XBL etc etc. Why not use those?

But I'm not sure the world needs hundreds of channels and overpriced cable packages.

Yah cable companies start as the middlemen doing nothing but relaying signals. Now the channels they are take in licensing fees, something they would lose if they went to internet only disitribution.

These companies do have to fund their programming. It's possible if tv networks went internet only, the free broadcase my garner more viewers. They'd also start to lose out on regional feeds, which probably bring in alot of cash.

I suspect we'll still have TV, and TV content over internet. They still have to pay to make the stuff. The internet can be a pretty disorganized place. If TV channels try and sell their tv shows over the net, they could get lost in the shuffle, could make it really hard to make content exclusively for the internet.

hopefully the internet's enough to drive down cable bills..

Edit - comments removed. No point to it.

Yes. Dont feed the troll.

False. $20/channel per year is LESS revenue, not more.

Keeping up with what?

I think we're at the stage where the doctor just told the patient that she better not be out in the sun very much, as she's at high risk for melanoma. This is the point where the patient ignores the doctor's advice and continues sunbathing "like she's always done."