Few people love to pay their cable bill. Even fewer celebrate every time the monthly fee goes up again. Still, we’re used to seeing a game of musical chairs when it comes to TV subscription services. Someone gets fed up with their local cable, and decides to switch to satellite service. Others are tired of [...]
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HDTV Almanac - Pay TV Market Shrinks in 10Q2
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alfredpoor
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film11
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I can say that, in my case and some others I've know or have spoken to, channels like HBO and STARZ were dropped because they alter widescreen movies. Cropping movies (especially visually-oriented ones) so that 30% - 60% of the picture is lost is NOT something we want to be charged money for. Personally, I'll be re-uping with HBO solely for BOARDWALK EMPIRE...but will cancel it again, once it's over.
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Roger Halstead
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And...The economy is the winner hands down
I can not imagine dropping satellite for cable even with cropped images. I have cable but only for the high speed internet. One thing that would cause me to drop a service is the infernal and perpetual adds pasted on or scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Often the image has a caption that is nearly covered and made illegible due to said banners. unfortunately I don't know of any service, or channel that doesn't do that any more. It's one of the reasons I haven't watched a network show in over 3 years. Of course the networks haven't had anything worth watching in more years than that.
BUT back to subscriptions being down: One only needs to look at the highways to see the amount of driving is down drastically and it's reflected in the price of gas. It's also reflected in the highway death toll which dropped from 43000 to 33000 in one year. It's true that great strides have been made in making automobiles safer, but so far they've made no improvements to the nut behind the wheel. People are also saving at an almost unprecedented rate which again translates to spending less, often much less.
Are people cutting the cord which I think is a very inaccurate question because they are adding "the cord" as the Internet is certainly not wireless. We should be asking if they are adding another cord. Some connections may wireless access be but not the Internet is mainly hardwired or fiber. Nor have I seen speeds across the Internet fast enough for SD let along HD most of the time. If it's a popular show or movie AND I can download it to view later, it works fine, but streaming video has been a lost cause at least here. A quick "tracert" will usually show where the bottlenecks are and so far I've not found them to be with the cable company.
I think that where viewers used to sign up for every channel that might have the occasional program they *might* watch, they are now being more discriminating and sign up only for the ones that have things they will be regularly interested in. They are not purchasing cars. They are taking shorter vacations closer to home, or even staying home. Television and particularly the premium channels don't rate real high on the necessity list for those out of work or fearing they soon will be. I used to purchase a new car every three years or less. Now I'm driving a 12 year old SUV that gets 18 to 20 mpg when I'd really like a new car that gets better mileage. However I only drive when needed and plan my trips to cover the least miles. We just cut out a number of satellite charges. All of this is based not on what we can afford at the moment, but the economy and where it appears to be headed particularly with the things the government is doing appearing to have a negative impact on the economy of the future. What they are doing has been done before and the results were not good.
BUT back to subscriptions being down: One only needs to look at the highways to see the amount of driving is down drastically and it's reflected in the price of gas. It's also reflected in the highway death toll which dropped from 43000 to 33000 in one year. It's true that great strides have been made in making automobiles safer, but so far they've made no improvements to the nut behind the wheel. People are also saving at an almost unprecedented rate which again translates to spending less, often much less.
Are people cutting the cord which I think is a very inaccurate question because they are adding "the cord" as the Internet is certainly not wireless. We should be asking if they are adding another cord. Some connections may wireless access be but not the Internet is mainly hardwired or fiber. Nor have I seen speeds across the Internet fast enough for SD let along HD most of the time. If it's a popular show or movie AND I can download it to view later, it works fine, but streaming video has been a lost cause at least here. A quick "tracert" will usually show where the bottlenecks are and so far I've not found them to be with the cable company.
I think that where viewers used to sign up for every channel that might have the occasional program they *might* watch, they are now being more discriminating and sign up only for the ones that have things they will be regularly interested in. They are not purchasing cars. They are taking shorter vacations closer to home, or even staying home. Television and particularly the premium channels don't rate real high on the necessity list for those out of work or fearing they soon will be. I used to purchase a new car every three years or less. Now I'm driving a 12 year old SUV that gets 18 to 20 mpg when I'd really like a new car that gets better mileage. However I only drive when needed and plan my trips to cover the least miles. We just cut out a number of satellite charges. All of this is based not on what we can afford at the moment, but the economy and where it appears to be headed particularly with the things the government is doing appearing to have a negative impact on the economy of the future. What they are doing has been done before and the results were not good.