Cable TV has fewest subscribers since 1992, YouTube TV is the only riser
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Not that I'm saying Comcasts' rates and speeds are particularly good, but I'm paying $80/mo for 1200/35 on Comcast Xfinity.
The upload speeds could be better, but I'm not a streamer, so it doesn't bother me. Comcast also has plans up to 6000 Mbps, but I don't think that's available everywhere. They did offer to upgrade me to 2000 Mbps, but it would have cost more and I would need to rent a modem from them, so I went with the 1200/35 instead.
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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.
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Crazy. They could probably get YouTubeTV for 40% less than cable, or Sling Blue for 40% less than YouTubeTV
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For many years we've seen the declining cable TV reports, its clear the trend. Eventually TV subscribers will decline so much that our internet access rates will be raised to cover the profit loss.
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Not surprised I cut the cord in 2018 and my pocket book has certainly appreciated it.
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I live south of Los Angeles and have antenna TV along with a used TiVo DVR. My antenna gets about 160 channels. Most of what I record are PBS and 6 or so NFL games each week. It's great to watch recorded NFL games in 40 minutes and skip commercials and the 30 seconds between plays. Somehow I feel like a freeloader, but if I didn't have this, there'd be plenty to stream on the internet too. My unlimited internet\phone plan cost $15\month. What a cheapskate I am.
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I've found in areas where there is actual competition, usually from a 3rd party be it Google or municipal, they start offering much better service. Google rolled in to my area and it completely changed the landscape even though Google probably only hit half the area. We now get 1g from all three providers for $70/m (in addition to cheaper plans for cable and up to 5g for ATT). And Spectrum went from barely staying up to actually being reliable.
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The top channels are usually ESPN, Fox news and MSNBC. None of them put that content on their streaming services. Local channels are also popular since OTA is often not an option. RSNs are not that popular or profitable which is why Sinclair Bally's filed chapter 11.
Neither am I. Disney really hates DVR.
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Back in my day, we had only seven (4 vhf + 3 uhf). monty python‘ flying circus was on channel 12.
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We have YouTube TV and have them record everything we care about watching and then fast-forward through the commercials.
It has unlimited storage
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Lots of channels available over the air for free. Cable tv simply wasn't worth the 120/month that I saved by ditching it.
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Abhi Beckert
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
I cancelled mine a week ago - it was already heavily discounted since I threatened to cancel a while ago and they offered a better deal.
With interest rates and consumer prices going up, and my salary not going up, we've cancelling all kinds of stuff in the last few months and we'll be doing more.
I terminated my iPad's cellular service today for example - wifi only from now on. Probably going to switch to a cheaper phone service provider soon as well. We'll likely downgrade from Apple One to just iCloud+ as well.
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Abhi Beckert
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
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.
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More need to drop it faster. Every single cable subscriber is funding Fox News. Without all the people paying these fee, Rupert's fascism machine doesn't function.
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I'm 40 and have never paid for cable TV, and never will. It does help that I'm not a sports person.
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Also, the largest shareholder in Warner Bros Discovery (which owns CNN, HBO, WB Entertainment, among other things) is also one of the largest shareholders of News Corp (which owns Fox).
So giving money to these guys also enriches the people who own right wing media.
It's no surprise the conservatives are always complaining about "left wing media" when they are actually the ones who own it - they are, after all, well versed in projection and misdirection.
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I grew up in Atlantic Canada. Two English-language stations, one French-language station (but CBC showed Monty Python and Star Trek, so I was good to go).
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Actually I love YTTV because I can remove channels I have no interest in (live Fox News), sort the remaining channels however I wish, AND THEY HAVE A "DVR" FEATURE to save and replay shows pretty much at my convenience (does not save shows permanently, but for months normally.) Price is getting too high though due to the sports lovers demanding pricey channels.
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Especially as a lot of channels like religious, shopping and some international are free and a lot of C tier entertainment channels are cheap.
It's the broadcast networks and sports channels that cost a fortune just the 5 broadcast and ESPN are $30 of a cable package and that's not including the broadcast TV fee which goes to the local TV station affiliate like Sinclair or Nexstar.
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To be honest, while I am in the process of canceling all my Comcast services except for internet access, I do often wonder if Comcast is missing a bet by not subsidizing the cost of the Disney Plus and Netflix subs in order to maintain cable subscribers at a certain level. In aggregate they would likely make their money back and then some. Personally, I know that I would likely continue to subscribe with my current cable package, and possibly increase the tier, if they offered that sort of option.
If it was just myself, I could be content to only have YouTube TV and nothing else, but with a wife, six grandchildren that visit consistently, and my mother that lives with us, not having Netflix and DisneyPlus is simply not an option.
If it was just myself, I could be content to only have YouTube TV and nothing else, but with a wife, six grandchildren that visit consistently, and my mother that lives with us, not having Netflix and DisneyPlus is simply not an option.
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I hate Comcast so much that Youtube TV still seems like a good choice. Being a sports fan and too far to get any OTA signal besides religious TV has me trapped into subscribing to something or missing out.
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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.
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Im really surprised Google still offers this service and at no charge.
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I would suppose that depends on which channels. Many of the channels cable companies provide have carriage fees under $1, and some are even in the single digits of cents. OTOH, something like ESPN costs cable systems over $10 per subscriber per month, and would undoubtedly cost several times that if they had to limit their pool to people who actually wanted to pay for the channel.
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There were 2 tipping points for me.
1) When the cost went over 100 a month - We only watch a few shows
2) Our streaming service picked up the main show that we watched, and has live news.
We've since reduced our number of streaming services as we cannot consume a fraction of the content that they put out (and most is not good).
If there is a show that I really want to watch that I do not get - I can watch at someones house, or binge it with a free trial.
I don't have a lot of free time. I've been watching short shows on the Dust channel on youtube and generally doing things like gardening or cooking.
We do not watch sports, we may catch a game or part of a game here or there. We can usually catch that on over the air TV or just get the highlights afterwards.
1) When the cost went over 100 a month - We only watch a few shows
2) Our streaming service picked up the main show that we watched, and has live news.
We've since reduced our number of streaming services as we cannot consume a fraction of the content that they put out (and most is not good).
If there is a show that I really want to watch that I do not get - I can watch at someones house, or binge it with a free trial.
I don't have a lot of free time. I've been watching short shows on the Dust channel on youtube and generally doing things like gardening or cooking.
We do not watch sports, we may catch a game or part of a game here or there. We can usually catch that on over the air TV or just get the highlights afterwards.
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Back in my day we had only 5 channels, all OTA. The local ABC, NBC, CBS (2 of them), and PBS affiliate channels.
/me shakes two canes
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WhiskersWithClaws
Ars Scholae Palatinae
It took a while, but we're finally cord cutters. It was very difficult to replace the DVR process as most streaming sites (at the time we were looking) didn't have a replacement. It was always "On Demand, with ads, in a pay service".
YouTubeTV was the first service we found which didn't push ads into its On Demand service (not to be confused with the live service which will have ads). In addition, it also licensed older episodes, which was nice if you're coming into streaming and found a new show to watch. Most shows go back to season 1, episode 1.
Unfortunately, YTTV has taken the exact same role of the former cable provider: continued rate increases with nothing to show for it. The bullshit sports package is, once again, going to be subsidized by everyone who uses the service just so a few people can get cheaper access to games.
If sports fans want their games, pony up full price and leave the subsidized payments out our monthly bill.
Throw in the asinine stupidity of gatekeepers who falsely believe people will pay whatever it takes to watch their shows, and it just makes services like YTTV that much worse. Right, Netflix?
We're long, long overdue to restore copyright laws back to the public. Most of what's available would be in the public domain under original copyright laws (those prior to 1976). We really fucked up as a country entering the Berne system, but hey, anything for your money.
YouTubeTV was the first service we found which didn't push ads into its On Demand service (not to be confused with the live service which will have ads). In addition, it also licensed older episodes, which was nice if you're coming into streaming and found a new show to watch. Most shows go back to season 1, episode 1.
Unfortunately, YTTV has taken the exact same role of the former cable provider: continued rate increases with nothing to show for it. The bullshit sports package is, once again, going to be subsidized by everyone who uses the service just so a few people can get cheaper access to games.
If sports fans want their games, pony up full price and leave the subsidized payments out our monthly bill.
Throw in the asinine stupidity of gatekeepers who falsely believe people will pay whatever it takes to watch their shows, and it just makes services like YTTV that much worse. Right, Netflix?
We're long, long overdue to restore copyright laws back to the public. Most of what's available would be in the public domain under original copyright laws (those prior to 1976). We really fucked up as a country entering the Berne system, but hey, anything for your money.
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The original copyright law in the US was 14 years + an optional 14 year renewal, so a maximum of 28 years. Which would mean anything before 1995 would be public domain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Duration_of_copyright
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Once again, I feel like some editors here may be biased against Youtube TV. I've seen a few times where they try to play YTTV off as no better than cable and satellite.
This just isn't true. It's not satellite or terrestrial. It's not nearly as predatory as satellite and cable. There are no hidden fees, no bullshit fees, no monopolistic local deals, etc.
If I were to switch from YTTV to Comcast right now my TV bill, to get a comparable package, would go up at least $50 (before considering hidden fees). Meanwhile I can watch YTTV literally anywhere, and the app works great everywhere that I have tried it.
I don't know if YTTV is the best pay TV (with live TV and live local channels) service, but I would take it in a heartbeat any day over Comcast, Mediacom, Charter, DirecTV, Dish, etc.
This just isn't true. It's not satellite or terrestrial. It's not nearly as predatory as satellite and cable. There are no hidden fees, no bullshit fees, no monopolistic local deals, etc.
If I were to switch from YTTV to Comcast right now my TV bill, to get a comparable package, would go up at least $50 (before considering hidden fees). Meanwhile I can watch YTTV literally anywhere, and the app works great everywhere that I have tried it.
I don't know if YTTV is the best pay TV (with live TV and live local channels) service, but I would take it in a heartbeat any day over Comcast, Mediacom, Charter, DirecTV, Dish, etc.
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Finally, sports are having to pay their way. Sports were essentially subsidized on cable packages. Granma, who never watched ESPN, was still paying the $5.95 monthly ESPN fee whether she wanted it or not.
That's a good thing.
But sports fans face now having to subscribe to a half dozen to a dozen streaming services to see the various offerings. Which is one reason I think YouTube.TV is about to explode. I'm a big sports guy and I'm constantly having to subscribe and cancel services to see what I want to see. THe cost isn't the problem....it's always wondering which streaming service a game is on, do I have access, what's my PW, etc......it's a major pain in the ass.
The NFL package is going to raise the profile of YTTB substantially and I can tell you a lot of sports fans are going to say screw it, I'm just getting one expensive channel as opposed to half dozen streaming services that cost upwards of $150 per month when combined.
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While there's no doubt a lot of shitty content out there....there's also a lot of good TV. The number of quality TV series available on AppleTV, Netflix, Amazon, makes it impossible to keep up. But finding the good among the bad requires some effort.
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This is especially true for sports fans who are constantly wondering which streaming service they need to sign up to, say, watch the soccer, er, football World Cup. NFL alone is on at least 8 different broadcasters (Amazon, YTTV, Peacock, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN. I can tell you a LOT of fans are going to sign up for YTTV, realize they can just pay for that and cancel many others and be done with it simply for the convenience.
There's also a lot of growing disillusion with the overwhelming number of streaming options. It's confusing, expensive and hard to keep up. So I agree the pendulum will swing, but not back to cable but to something new like YTTV.
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Nobody subscribes to ALL of them, but it's easy in a household of 3 or more to have a half dozen simultaneously.
And "watch and cancel" becomes a pain in the air to go along with remembering passwords....the hassle factor for streaming has become a significant negative IMO.
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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.
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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.
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I have the Youtube TV on firestick. When I moved back with my parents I didn't have to run any cables or dishes. I can watch it on my phone and tablet and computer. Sorry cable and satellite, you become obsolete.
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I went with Sling TV when I "cut the cord". It doesn't have quite as many channels as YTTV, but it had all I wanted for $30 a month. It is $40 a month now. It's basically the same as YTTV with fewer channels. It has local channels in many markets. It has DVR and storage for it. The app works on phones, tablets, smart TVs, and streaming sticks.
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