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How much longer does traditional TV have left?

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If you are defining TV as ad-supported video content, then it will never go away. I watch a lot of Youtube, but a Youtube playlist has advertising just like a basic cable station.

The model of packaged TV content, where you get a bunch of channels you don't watch, is needed to launch new channels and handle a diverse customer base. You may, for example, pay only for an ad-supported Disney channel service -- but it likely will always be made up of multiple Disney channels serving different purposes. Even Netflix has split itself into Kid and adult sections.
 
I use an antenna and the ChannelMaster Antenna DVR. Stuff like Saturday Morning Cartoons don't exist anymore, maybe one of the multi casting sub channels could be dedicated to cartoons.
 
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that while streaming sports is there it is still subject to latency and outages more than traditional.

Do you think how many people will care about the 5 second latency if they can save 30 dollar a month?

People have readily accept lower quality streaming music and streaming movie for convenience.
 
Once we all have self driving cars and don't have to watch the road or pay attention to our surroundings then TV or streaming services will transition to the car and become the new radio.
 
I use an antenna and the ChannelMaster Antenna DVR. Stuff like Saturday Morning Cartoons don't exist anymore, maybe one of the multi casting sub channels could be dedicated to cartoons.

Nice idea, but there's a whole mess of federal regulations regarding children's programming and broadcast television. It's never coming back.
 
You can watch the bar majority of football games (college and NFL) for free with rabbit ears.

Just looked at last years schedule. I could watch 2 regular season Florida football games with an antenna, out of 12. The conference championship and bowl game they played in were broadcast, so 4 for 14. I could also only watch 2 out of 36 Florida basketball games last year without cable.

Just last month, I cut the cord, but I fully expect to subscribe to Playstation Vue once football and basketball start up again.
 
NO as far as I know all the major sports black out streaming if you are in the city of the team you want to watch. I would say that's a huge percentage of sports fans. It's nice for football to use my antenna but I can't get hockey or baseball.

But it's true that if you add up the cost of streaming 3-4 Pro sports seasons and potentially playoffs, you might as well just get cable.

and can't you get like... one college football game with an antenna? That's kinda far from the majority. I don't watch college football, but wouldn't it only be on NBC or CBS or something?

I meant local NFL games. Baseball works for me since I'm not in my local area, but it's not like a VPN or DNS setting change is very onerous.

I can easily catch 3-4 different college football games every Saturday, not that I'd have time to watch them all. It's usually marquee games. I suppose you could bum someone's ESPN log in if you're desperate. That's about all ESPN seems good for these days.

Just looked at last years schedule. I could watch 2 regular season Florida football games with an antenna, out of 12. The conference championship and bowl game they played in were broadcast, so 4 for 14. I could also only watch 2 out of 36 Florida basketball games last year without cable.

Just last month, I cut the cord, but I fully expect to subscribe to Playstation Vue once football and basketball start up again.

You'd really need ESPN (SEC network) to stay on top of them.
 
I can't see streaming completely take over traditional TV until sports streaming packages become cheaper and get rid of local blackouts.
 
i realize i am old gen, but there are soooooo many TV shows that i've loved over the years that I would never, ever have watched if not for channel flipping and "because it was on"

especially documentaries about subjects that i'm not particularly interested in, but enjoy anyway, or, as a recent example of a TV show, "Naked and Afraid", whose premise seemed like trashy reality TV, but it's a pretty legit survival show

i'd probably be stuck in my own little "bubble" of same-y shows if not for channel flipping after work when i get home tired. I guess stuff like Vue will eventually replace cable TV for me, but it's just "traditional TV" through a different medium
 
These threads are always so western centric. How big is streaming in Europe? South America? Asia, Africa, and a number of other places, rural and urban. Tons of unique markets and cultural circumstances. Broadcast TV won't go away just like that.
 
Broadcast television will be around for quite some time, it's a pretty vital asset in community affairs and emergency broadcasting, something that streaming alternatives can't replace. Plus these days many people that are more into using streaming services also have an antenna as a supplement to their Netflix or whatever.

Cable probably won't go away for quite some time either, feel like the biggest cable channels(CNN/ESPN/MTV/TNT/Nick) will continue to exist in some form for many years. Also there is still the fact that a majority of people in the U.S. still subscribe to some form of cable or satellite television.
 
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about how not many people are actually cutting cable. Over the last decade cable subscriptions went down from 100 million to something like 95 million in the US. Barely a dent has been made.
 
I have not watched TV programs for about 5-6 years.
My ISP gives me some 40-50 channels for free (as a part of the internet package along with a landline - everything for 40€) but I never even turn the box on.
Everything I need to watch is on the internet.



I watch NFL, they have an awesome package (it is a bit expensive $200 per year), which allows me to stream any game live or on demand, as well as download them all.
NBA, NCAA, NHL and MLB have similar apps and all for much cheaper (about $100 per year).
And you can watch them all on your phone, tablet, PC, PS4...whenever you want.
Even though you might get some of those games for free on TV, it is worth spending momey if you are a fan, the convenience and choice is well worth it.

The NBA app ran like crap this season and it also blacked out games on NBA TV. NBA TV has playoff games and games on routinely during the week that would be blacked out with league pass. You also wouldn't get your local teams games with league pass and those games usually air on an offbeat sports channels like FSN South.

If there was a decent way to watch the sports without cable I would cancel it with the quickness but there really isn't a comprehensive alternative.
 
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about how not many people are actually cutting cable. Over the last decade cable subscriptions went down from 100 million to something like 95 million in the US. Barely a dent has been made.

Maybe as of yet. But this is only the beginning. Like I said in the OP, kids today are growing up with Netflix, not cable. They're not going to suddenly switch over to cable when they become adults.

Only 5 million out of 100 million might seem small right now, but that number is going to increase exponentially throughout the next 20-30 years. There's going to be an entire generation of adults who don't pay for cable.
 
Something is going to have to happen to break the stranglehold cable companies have on internet access and live sports. I don't know if this condition is unique to the United States though. If so, traditional cable might stay dominant in the US for longer than in other countries where ISPs are more independent and more competitive. In the US it'll probably have to take sheer market forces over time, and possibly increased regulation to encourage competition. One possible first step might be this thing that's going through in the US where third party companies will be able to build and sell their own cable boxes to go with DirecTV or Comcast or whatever.

I did read somewhere though that around 2012 we reached the peak in terms of how many people will ever sign up for cable.
 
Maybe as of yet. But this is only the beginning. Like I said in the OP, kids today are growing up with Netflix, not cable. They're not going to suddenly switch over to cable when they become adults.
This just isn't true. Sports makes this clear, most young kids watch sports.

These same kids growing up with Netflix are the same ones growing up obsessed with watching Steph Curry (seriously it seems like every boy under 10 years old loves Curry like 90s kid with Michael Jordan). Little kids aren't growing up in a non cable world. At all.

Little kids love live sports too. I mean we can't ignore Currys popularity with little kids being huge. And the only way to watch him is live tv.
 
These threads are always so western centric. How big is streaming in Europe? South America? Asia, Africa, and a number of other places, rural and urban. Tons of unique markets and cultural circumstances. Broadcast TV won't go away just like that.


Streaming is even more popular in China because the ISP carriers secretly encourage movie privacy as a form of ISP bonus; and the state TV stations has alot more restrictions on the content they can show.

There are like hundreds of different favors of android based TV streaming boxes you can buy in China. Most of them can show European football games for free too.
 
I worked in tv/media (advertising). Networks here had to deeply discount airtime and it still underperformed.

More dollars were going to digital as agencies own the digital networks plus got higher commission. Tv advertising model needs to change before it goes into freefall.

Also kids watch YouTube over traditional tv, those habits won't change as they get older.

Sports keeps cable alive which is why sport bodies can charge so much for rights. At some point soon cable companies won't be able to pay and sporting bodies will be able to get more from a streaming service.
 
As long as advertisers buy commercial time, traditional TV is not going anywhere.

The question is - when will pay streaming sites start showing product/sponsor commercials regardless of your subs?
 
Longer than what people will predict in this thread. It reminds me of talk of what consoles would be in the video game space back in 2006ish when I started listening to podcasts like 1UPYours. They were all convinced in 10 years discs would be dead and everyone would be digital, etc. Until broadband infrastructure gets an upgrade in America, things will remain the same. If I go 100ft down the road from my house, people don't have access to cable or broadband internet. Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc are completely out of the question for them.
 
With the exception of live events like sport I can't stand watching 'norma'l tv or tv with commercials. I'm 44 and Netflix blows my mind on a daily basis.
 
If I cancelled my tv and phone with Comcast and only subscribed to cable internet, I would have to pay someone else a fee for TV programming. The cost would be about the same. As long as cable companies heavily discount the bundles, I will continue paying for programming thru them instead of Hulu/Vue/whatever since there is no appreciable savings.
 
Nice idea, but there's a whole mess of federal regulations regarding children's programming and broadcast television. It's never coming back.

Well, we can just say the cartoons are for adults, just like live action shows or the Loony Tunes DVDS that have a disclaimer saying they are for an adult audience.
 
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