The Latest Numbers Suggest Netflix Really Is Killing Traditional TV

wrangler said:
Also, just get yourself a decent antenna, no one can stop you, no HOA, no city ordinance. TV signals MUST be received. OTARD protects you.
I'm thinking one about the size of the old Radio Shack log periodics, 20 elements at least, and stick it on the top of a roof tower or hell, just a good old fashioned tower and pick up the free digital quality broadcasts that is out there.
For the posters saying they miss just the background of something being on, there is your answer.
The picture looks damn good too.

Oh and get a rotator and the whole nine yards. I wanna see antenna as far as the eye can see.

MWuhhahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
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Many Planned communities have rules against outdoor antennas. Even if I was allowed to put up an outdoor antenna, I'm on the wrong side of a major hill and even a 20 foot poll on top of my 2nd story wouldn't be enough.
 
MacLeod said:
If they ever make it to where you can subscribe to channels exclusively like ESPN, History and so on there will be no reason at all for cable/satellite companies.
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I have no interest in ESPN, but from what I've read if they broke it out into an ala carte station, you'd pay between 20-30/month for it.

I'm still kinda shocked at cable prices quoted here. I haven't had it (with the exception of an Apartment that provided it with rent) in 10 years, but I was only paying $35.00/month after taxes (no locals). For that price, I got pretty much everything I was interested in and then some. Actually looking at Direct TV's current line up, it looks like I could easily live with the 29.99 package (19.99 for 1 year). About the only thing I'd be tempted to add is the HD package to get Palladia.

I will say that I'd give up ESPN in that package (which I definitely got 10 years ago), but for 40 you get that (30 for first year).
 
If commercials really bothered everyone then nobody would be using Hulu. Because it isn't much better, you end up with the same commercial breaks, only difference is that they are half as long and you keep seeing the same damn thing over and over and over.
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exactly.

Exavior said:
Now with Blu-ray they are back to lots of previews and preventing you from skipping them. This is always going to be a repeat cycle. The next new thing will try to shit on how the old did things but then after awhile they will slide back into that action as it lets them make money.
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I've never understood why they do that. Give me a disk with previews and I'm almost certain to watch them, but I probably only want to watch them the first time. After that, I've seen it. On DVD, I would stop the disk and then skip to the chapter where the movie starts :D
 
If netflix was available here, I know I would subscribe to it, not because of the commercials things, not because of price, but because I can negotiate the programs so I can watch whatever, whenever I want (at least this is what I think how Netflix works). Can't do that on a TV with strict schedules, and more often than not they are loaded with shows/movies I don't have the slightest interest in.
 
Since moving out of my parents house and getting my own, I've not had cable. While I miss some of the programs I use to watch, I don't miss them enough to get anything more than an internet connection. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime provide me with enough entertainment to satisfy my needs.

Really the only thing about cable I miss is having something just there at any given time. During prime time I could turn it on and find something I like. Even if its something I've seen a dozen times before. Now I spend probably a half hour just trying to find something to put on for background noise.
 
ICOM said:
Advertisements are killing traditional TV.
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Just buy a TIVO with a lifetime subscription and you'll never have to watch commercials again. Network TV is not getting rid of commercials (unless they're going to go with even more blatant ads within the shows and run an ad scroll throughout the scroll), because it pays the bills.

But we have the technology to get around the commercials. Most can't afford it, because buying a Tivo outright is expensive, but over the long haul (if you get cable), it'll save you money, eliminate commercials and give you the best DVR (IME) out there.
 
wrangler said:
Also, just get yourself a decent antenna, no one can stop you, no HOA, no city ordinance. TV signals MUST be received. OTARD protects you.
I'm thinking one about the size of the old Radio Shack log periodics, 20 elements at least, and stick it on the top of a roof tower or hell, just a good old fashioned tower and pick up the free digital quality broadcasts that is out there.
For the posters saying they miss just the background of something being on, there is your answer.
The picture looks damn good too.

Oh and get a rotator and the whole nine yards. I wanna see antenna as far as the eye can see.



MWuhhahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
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If you really want to go cheap, just make one. There are plenty of tutorials on Youtube. ALl you need is some wood, screws and a coat hangers. By most accounts they're as good or better than what you can buy. UHF antennas are definitely not a new, or expensive, technology.
 
nutzo said:
Many Planned communities have rules against outdoor antennas. Even if I was allowed to put up an outdoor antenna, I'm on the wrong side of a major hill and even a 20 foot poll on top of my 2nd story wouldn't be enough.
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It'd be a fight, but I think that breaks FCC rules. Even apartments have to allow you to put up a Sat. Now they can say you can't attach it to their building, but if you own the building, I really think you someone should file a complaint with the FCC.
 
you guys are lucky to be able to use antennas still..

up here all the channels are encrypted and require bullshit from some provider to see anything.

well except radio...
 
chenw said:
If netflix was available here, I know I would subscribe to it, not because of the commercials things, not because of price, but because I can negotiate the programs so I can watch whatever, whenever I want (at least this is what I think how Netflix works).
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Only if they have it.

Can't do that on a TV with strict schedules, and more often than not they are loaded with shows/movies I don't have the slightest interest in.
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What do you think Netflix is loaded with?
 
nilepez said:
If you really want to go cheap, just make one. There are plenty of tutorials on Youtube. ALl you need is some wood, screws and a coat hangers. By most accounts they're as good or better than what you can buy. UHF antennas are definitely not a new, or expensive, technology.
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I'm an Extra Class ham. :D

I just find it amusing that as society has done everything they can to get rid of antennae, perhaps there will be an unexpected resurgence of the thing most hated by HOA's everywhere.

Just an old ham's twisted version of schadenfreude. :D

Even better if they're made of wood and coat hangers. :D:D:D
 
I pay for hulu and am ok with the one or 2 ad's, but cable wants you to pay WAY more for 7x the advertising and has little ability to pick what and when you want to watch. A DVR is cool, but it costs more, and doesn't hold a whole lot. I'd be ok with ad's if the cost wasn't crazy high. However, I'd rather have ad's than terrible product placement....
 
Kongar said:
What's hilarious about this is that waaaaaaaaay back in the day, THE reason to get cable was:

1) No commercials
2) Good quality service (no futzing with the rabbit ears)
3) It was 100% reasonably priced
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Cable has never been "no commercials". It was originally meant as a way to get access to broadcast networks when they weren't accessible using an antenna. Then it became a way for new networks, that didn't have broadcast rights, to reach households. Such networks could be ad supported or not based on their business model.
 
The Latest Numbers Suggest Netflix Really Is Killing Traditional TV
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And yet I still can't find a damn thing to watch on it excepting maybe House of Cards.
 
SparkedFire said:
One thing I am noticing is that Comcast is now selling its internet packages at an increased rate while offering much lower prices on a TV/internet bundle to try to keep the TV subscriber number inflated. You can get TV/internet for less than internet alone.
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On top of that in my area they claim that you MUST buy TV with internet in order to get most of the plans. The only 2 plans excluded are the crap bottom plan and the highest plan which is some weird shotgun modem things where I think they have to run 2 lines to your house.
 
DPI said:
And yet I still can't find a damn thing to watch on it excepting maybe House of Cards.
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House of cards
OITNB
Lilyhammer
Marco Polo

and that's just their original stuff.

Still got plenty of good tv shows/movies to watch (there is still a lot of crappy ones on there too).
 
DPI said:
And yet I still can't find a damn thing to watch on it excepting maybe House of Cards.
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We were thinking the same thing the other day. Netflix is geared a lot more towards TV shows than movies these days. I don't think it's necessarily just Netflix though as youtube, casual gaming, and other new ways to get content are considerably higher than ever. I didn't even watch tv tonight as I spent time learning how to fix things via youtube videos.


For me Amazon is opening up the doors to actual ala carte service. I've never had the ability to watch Top Gear UK as it's on BBC-A. You can watch previous seasons on Netflix but would be waiting some time to see the latest episodes. Now you can buy a season pass for $30 and have access to the entire season when they come available. Rather than having to pay $60 a month for cable you can take that and divide it up among other options. $10 a month can go to a streaming service, $20 in movie rentals, and $30 a month for buying season passes to something. You could seriously buy 12 seasons of TV shows, 60 movie rentals, and still have a streaming service to fill in during a year. That's more than one movie per week, probably 2 or 3 new shows a week, and streaming for additional options when something else isn't on. Some people that might not be enough, others might not even need to spend that much per month to be happy.
 
Cord cutting lol.

DVR recorded over the new mythbusters due to a marathon and my having set the recording limit to five episodes.

Went to Hulu. Nothing there. Not on Netflix.

Until the net has content parity with cable (without P2P use) it's for tech dorks who enjoy moldy content.
 
ianken said:
Cord cutting lol.

DVR recorded over the new mythbusters due to a marathon and my having set the recording limit to five episodes.

Went to Hulu. Nothing there. Not on Netflix.

Until the net has content parity with cable (without P2P use) it's for tech dorks who enjoy moldy content.
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You mean this season?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Simpsons-...F8&qid=1423450307&sr=8-1&keywords=mythbusters

$3 a episode in HD or at some point they'll have the season pass and it will be closer to 2 - 2.50. You can probably pick up the entire season for half of what this month's cable bill is going to be.
 
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comcast has been calling me over and over to get cable, finally they offered to lower my bill (internet only), and give me faster internet if I added cable... so I did... wasn't home the three times UPS tried to deliver the box (as I expected)... lets see what happens lol
 
As others have mentioned in the thread already.

Cost/Commercials.

The commercials are what I won't tolerate. With the rise of streaming and torrents, I refuse to watch scripted content with commercials. There is ZERO revenue generated from me as a viewer that way. If I were a content creator, I'd be looking at ways to monetize their content that did not rely on commercials to capture people like me.


Cost is an issue as well, and quality. You pay all that money for cable/sat for some janky looking 720p video, even streaming video blows that out of the water. You can also get full 1080p streams and some nascent 4k streams already through non commercial flooding services like netflix and amazon prime. But those 100+ dollar cable offerings? grainy ass 720p. MAYBE some 1080i/p if you pay for a single movie. But who wants to do that?


I'd pay for hulu+ and add money on top if I could choose shows to remove the commercials on and up the streaming quality to 1080p.

But they refuse, they think they can goad people like me into seeing it live, or maybe catch a few stray commercials while skipping on the dvr, or maybe have me wait an ENTIRE DAY to buy a single episode for 2 dollars.

.... or I could just hypothetically go torrent the 1080p version of the show for free the next day, offering me higher quality than the PAID live/dvr version with less distractions.


get a f*cking clue content distributors. Netflix has the right model, which is why I want them fielding all the juicy content so it can be delivered in a superior way. You are not going to see that foundation series show hbo got the rights to streamed in 4k, but IF it was on netflix, it would be. Forward thinking companies deserve to thrive and get paid. In fact, if anyone here is not already paying for netflix, stop what you are doing and go throw money at their faces, they are the greatest force for positive change in the entire entertainment industry. Reward that.
 
Sidebar.

I saw the first season of fairy tail on netflix, saw there were other episodes available on funimation, so I signed up for their streaming service and can now access full 1080p streams of the rest of the show. THAT is a model I will PAY MONEY for, easy streaming in as good a quality as you have.


Why is this so hard for people to understand?
 
All of those marginal stations will eventually disappear. That is prolly a good thing. Our Movie/TV industry is due a market correction.
 
I cut cable TV due to price, and I save about $1000 per year. I think I'm on year 3 now. I far prefer the streaming options to what cable offered. I do not watch any live sports though. Actually I barely watch any television, onlunhere and there with the family.
 
I cannot watch TV unless I have it DVR recorded. Commercials are just out of control. Something new I've noticed they are doing is they will come back to a show, for example ,, American Pickers and air like 1 or 2 minutes then go back to 3 - 5 mins of commercials. Can't stand it.
 
Cut the cable TV cord. I've been using a traditional OTA to get free HD broadcasts for about a year now.

Unfortunately, Comcast has me by the balls when it comes to internet and they know it. There is NO other ISP in my area. None, nada, zip. I pay $67/month for 20mbs down and 4mbs up.
 
I hope every day the NFL does its own Sunday ticket so I can see all the Colts games. I WANT to get rid of Directv...but I love the Colts too much.

The second I can get Sunday ticket online, I'll never have a TV payment again.
 
Cable is hugely expensive and crammed full of commercials. Not only that they force you to watch shows when they want you to. Is it any surprise that a system when none of those problems is beating cable at every turn?

Maybe this will get these old-media companies to realize they can't keep doing the same old thing. I doubt it will, I think the future of TV will be online content providers, like Netflix and I don't think any of the current cable providers will be online with them. The bigger ones may survive as ISPs but the days of cable TV are numbered.
 
spaceman said:
Number one reason? Commercials. I would and do gladly pay to not see them.
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Amen...;) The irony of "pay TV" (now called "cable TV") when it debuted is that the programming was supposed to have been commercial-free because people were paying to watch it. That never happened, as we all know. Netflix streaming service is actually the embodiment of that concept--a few decades later. It's remarkable that the traditional television networks don't understand the appeal of not only commercial-free programming, but also they don't seem to understand the appeal of being able to watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it, being able to pause the broadcast while you take a break, etc. I haven't watched traditional network television in years--I honestly can't remember when I lost interest--(I think at about the same time that I bought my original DVD player (now Blu-Ray) and joined a movie-rental club like Movie Gallery.)
 
Hi All

What Netflix, OTA & Prime can't get done, doesn't get done. It's been 3 years now since we cut the cord with no regrets
 
>Watch a two hour program last night with my mother about some serial killer
>An hour and 10 minutes of it was the show
>50 minutes of commercials

GEE I WONNNNNDERRRRRRRRR WHYYYYY PEOPLE STOPPED WATCHING TELEVISION!!!
 
SLee said:
Cable has never been "no commercials". It was originally meant as a way to get access to broadcast networks when they weren't accessible using an antenna. Then it became a way for new networks, that didn't have broadcast rights, to reach households. Such networks could be ad supported or not based on their business model.
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I beg to differ - it was at least "mostly" no commercials. Network broadcast stations like ABC NBC CBS etc. obviously had their normal commercials. But most cable only channels had non stop programming. Something like the discovery channel for example - you'd see maybe a minute or two of discovery channel related commercials (watch the sharks next week type thing) inbetween shows. But once the show started, you watched it till the end.

Now, if you watch say TLC, you're interrupted every 8 minutes with a commercial break just like your OTA stations. It wasn't like that at all in my area when we first got cable (which iirc was around the mid 1980s?)
 
I havent turned on my big screen in so long (for OTA TV or Xbox) I turned off the surge protector to my entire entertainment.
 
Kongar said:
I beg to differ - it was at least "mostly" no commercials. Network broadcast stations like ABC NBC CBS etc. obviously had their normal commercials. But most cable only channels had non stop programming. Something like the discovery channel for example - you'd see maybe a minute or two of discovery channel related commercials (watch the sharks next week type thing) inbetween shows. But once the show started, you watched it till the end.

Now, if you watch say TLC, you're interrupted every 8 minutes with a commercial break just like your OTA stations. It wasn't like that at all in my area when we first got cable (which iirc was around the mid 1980s?)
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The first true cable channel is TBS, which had commercials and was part of a basic cable package. Then you had HBO, which had no commercials but had a significantly monthly fee and was a premium channel.

Cable has always had ad-supported channels that are part of a basic packages and premium channels with no ads. While it's true that ads have increased, this has led to far more original content. And while much of this additional original content is junk or filler, there are also a lot more high quality content.
 
SLee said:
The first true cable channel is TBS, which had commercials and was part of a basic cable package. Then you had HBO, which had no commercials but had a significantly monthly fee and was a premium channel.

Cable has always had ad-supported channels that are part of a basic packages and premium channels with no ads. While it's true that ads have increased, this has led to far more original content. And while much of this additional original content is junk or filler, there are also a lot more high quality content.
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Not even. This has led to them trying to shovel as much shit as they can so they can get those ads in front of more viewers. There is a lot more content, but most of it is rehashed shit or some stupid twist on a reality show. There has been very little new quality content released in the past couple years, and even then it's hard to find because of the huge amount of shit content flooding the stations.

So that justification for ads is laughable, and is exactly what the cable companies want everyone to believe while they laugh themselves to the bank. If this was true, how is it netflix/amazon is able to come up with a bunch of new content without flooding your screen with ads. It all boils down to greed with the big corporations trying to pinch every last dollar they can, while crying (lying) about barely making enough money to survive.
 
I recently subscribed to Crunchyroll and Funimation to watch anime (used to, there were other methods of obtaining said content).

It's all I really ever watch anyway. I do actually supposedly have cable, but I wouldn't know because it isn't actually hooked up to anything! You know, I don't even think they sent me a cable box, not that I care. >_> Like seriously, it's actually cheaper for me to get cable and internet than it is for me to just get internet. It's frightening how desperate they are.

And by the way, yeah. Screw commercials. Maybe more people are realizing something important: time is more important than money. Regardless of where it is, I'd prefer to spend money to get content without commercials. And if the content has commercials then I will generally prefer to not watch it. I mean actually even the people that watch cable these days... most of them just "bookmark" another channel to switch to during commercials and then come back. Or record it and skip the commercials. If no one is watching the commercials anyway, what gets sold? I think the entire structure needs a bit of a reworking.

Google's approach is to datamine you to the point where their ads might actually be relevant to your interests (likewise, for instance a site for Anime content might have ads for related things, such as an MMORPG or anime goods site). Targeted ads aren't as bad as blatantly random crap that I don't care about but at the end of the day if you're really struggling for money I would prefer to just outright pay to use your darn site than have to sit through anything that's unavoidable (depending on what the site is). Some have taken this approach with some donation meter or somesuch. Step in the right direction imo.
 
Biznatch said:
So that justification for ads is laughable, and is exactly what the cable companies want everyone to believe while they laugh themselves to the bank. If this was true, how is it netflix/amazon is able to come up with a bunch of new content without flooding your screen with ads. It all boils down to greed with the big corporations trying to pinch every last dollar they can, while crying (lying) about barely making enough money to survive.
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Well, your complaint should be directed at the networks, not the cable companies who don't control what business model the networks operate on. And the main reason why there is so much reality show and other "junk" is that they are popular.

And of course, if we want to look at it; Netflix and Amazon don't produce that much content at all. And their per monthly cost are a lot more than what you pay for a typical non-premium channel. Even a channel like AMC, which has the most popular scripted show in the United States and dominated best drama awards with Mad Men and Breaking Bad is probably <$1/month.
 
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