Cable TV has fewest subscribers since 1992, YouTube TV is the only riser

YouTube TV is up 5 percent, and that's before NFL Sunday Ticket kicks in.

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[ERIFNOMI]

My local cable monopoly wants $120/month for internet access, or $100/month for internet, basic cable, and home phone. They have somehow managed to make internet access a loss leader for cable.

But then with all the bullshit fees that you don't have to pay if you're internet only, aren't you still coming out behind for that "cheaper" internet plan?

I've had a cable company just straight up lie to me to get me to subscribe to cable. I was moving and setting up internet only, but they quoted me the same price and waived the bullshit self install fee if I added cable. First bills comes around and it's not just the bullshit rebroadcast fees and sports fees and this and that fees, but also literally a cable package on my bill. They just hope they'll catch enough people not paying attention and putting shit on autopay. I wonder how many current cable subscribers don't even know they're paying for it. Probably a few.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

Weird that the article wants to lump YTv into the same cable category, yeah it looks like cable but my $64 plus my Disney bundle, Netflix and Paramount+ (football, the world one) is still something around half my old cable bill.

YTTV is "cable" over the internet. These over the top services are literally exactly the same thing you get from cable and nothing like Disney+ or Netflix. You have the same fixed channels and set scheduling that you do with cable or satellite or traditional TVoIP services. The only difference is you're paying someone to send it over a separate internet connection instead of paying the cable company directly.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

The bonus with Hulu live tv and I imagine youtube tv as well is that they desperately don't want to talk to you on the phone so you can cancel through the we interface in less than a minute. I typically add tv this time of year to watch the NBA playoffs and then cancel in june. No turning down all the offers and trying to convince a call center employee to allow it.

Starting and stopping YTTV is indeed quick and painless. You can even pause it for up to a year at a time without actually cancelling it, though cancelling and resuming service is so simple it doesn't really make a difference. It's just a tap in your account settings.

Canceling with a cable company is at least an hour long process where they will spend most of that time trying to convince you you'll miss them when you're gone.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

To be fair, YoutubeTV and other TVoIP services normally have a "DVR" that let you "record" a show for viewing later, and there's some on-demand viewing options, as well as maybe access to some channels' on-demand streaming apps. But most of those features are in line what a "regular" cable provider offers nowadays (DVR boxes, on-demand options from said box, access to a channel's streaming app), so it still makes them more like traditional cable than other streaming services. It's just not all "wait to watch it live."

I almost preempted this reply because I just knew someone was going to "to be faaaaairrrr" my ass.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

Are you in an area that you can get a digital antenna and get the channel over the air?
A good antenna can get about 150+ mile reception, iirc.
Might be worth looking into.

Worth pointing out there's no such thing as a "digital antenna." The antenna doesn't care what or how the data is encoded, it just needs to be tuned for the frequency being used.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

A "Digital Antenna" is TV antenna designed specifically for the frequencies that are used by modern digital TV broadcasting servies.

Analogue TV, in most cities, used different radio frequencies but the change in frequencies was small enough that you can still use the old antennas to receive a lossless digital signal in most cases.

If, however, you upgrade to a "Digital Antenna" which definitely is a product you can buy, then you'll get exactly the same picture quality from further away than you could with the antennas most people have on the top of their house these days.

Eventually some of the spectrum that was used for broadcast TV was reallocated and auctioned off for better uses. The channels that were using VHF moved to UHF, but UHF was in use before the digital transition as well.

There are definitely products marketed as "digital antennas" but that's just marketing. You need a UHF antenna, which plenty of people had before the digital transition and they are exactly the same whether you are receiving analog or digital TV over them, or anything else in the UHF band.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

Yeah, digital antenna makes about as much sense as digital speakers/speaker wire.

Digital antenna does make a small bit of sense. When OTA TV went digital a lot of the channels changed the frequencies they use. Your channel 4 is probably no longer in the VHF low band. The different frequencies require different antenna design to be resonant at the correct frequencies. There is still nothing digital about how antennas work. They are basically just pieces of wire of the correct length.

I suppose "UHF antenna, because your channels probably all moved to the UHF band and you have no need for VHF anymore" doesn't quite fit on the box in big, bold marketing letters.