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TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

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Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#61

Post by __david__ »

eikenberry wrote: post #31
dpcan wrote: post #18

"The old way of watching TV" is dying, and TV itself is just aging, and finding its place among Internet options it seems. It's now just another option among many, but I don't see that as meaning it will "die". I subscribe to Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Cable TV. This way of getting entertainment is actually frustratingly expensive. And to make things even dumber, sometime NONE of these services have what I want…

> This way of getting entertainment is actually frustratingly expensive. That's because you still have cable. Dump it and you'll get down to a reasonable cost. Hulu + Netflix + Prime is around $23/month.

Sadly that's still not enough to completely replace cable (the HBO series don't show up there). And even with Netflix and a cable TV subscription, I still find myself torrenting certain things. Sadly, torrenting is just so much easier than most of the legit ways to get shows.

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#62

Post by chc »

brownbat wrote: post #50

"TV is Dying" isn't the crazy part of this article. It claims people are chucking broadband subscriptions and using tablets and mobile internet, or more often, just free wifi from Starbucks (or neighbors?). Fascinating. If everyone dropped broadband, TV, and phone lines into the home, what's that world look like?

I'm pretty sure that part actually is crazy.

They promise a graph showing in hard numbers that broadband subscriptions are down, but never actually provide one. They just provide a graph showing, as best I can tell, that total customers for cable companies are going down. In fact, they confusingly state that customers are moving from cable with broadband to "telco companies like AT&T and Verizon who offer TV as a package with high-speed internet access."

From the description, this apparently isn't referring to mobile Internet, but AT&T U-verse and the like. So high-speed Internet from AT&T doesn't count as broadband on the grounds that they're a telco.

My best guess is that when this whole article is founded on the strange understanding that TV through a cable provider is the only real TV while getting the same content through satellite or what-have-you is "mobile," and cable Internet is "broadband" while anything from a "telco" like AT&T is a totally different thing. A rise of alternative providers is an interesting story, but it's a pretty different story from the one they're trying to tell here where everybody is just taking their iPads to Starbucks and watching cat videos.

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#63

Post by chaostheory »

anigbrowl wrote: post #41
bd wrote: post #10

The demise of TV in a single chart: http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2013-10-21/less-time-i... Younger the viewers, less TV they watch.

I would be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from that. Younger viewers are also more likely to have school work as kids or college students, and as young adults they spend more time running around exploring the world, seeking a mate, and so on. On the other hand, when they settle down viewing patterns can change. Also, bear in mind that now many current shows are competing with older shows available throug…

> Also, bear in mind that now many current shows are competing with older shows available through services like Netflix; they make less money up front, but the 'long tail' gets fatter for quality or cult shows.

I don't think services like Amazon or Netflix counts as TV even though they carry a lot of TV episodes

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#64

Post by VLM »

One truism of humanity is if you free a person, they try to enslave themselves as hard as they can. Sounds dumb, but its a wise observation of an older guy. Applied thru all aspects of life.

Anyway the relevance to this discussion is as TV dies out, what will be the analogy of the Janet Jackson superbowel half time show? Who will legions of mindless drones mail (email?) complaints to, regarding reddits gonewild showing about 3 square inches more of flesh than you'd see at a beach or the mall? Who will the super-conformists conform to if their holy altar of worship, the TV, goes away?

I guess what I'm saying is a darling of the censored neutered content biz is dying, but that doesn't mean weirdos (or prudes or whatever you want to call them) are going away any time soon.

So aside from this interesting and overlooked observation, whats the likely result of the final death of government censorship? Or will it be the final death...

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#65

Post by peferron »

marquis wrote: post #12
slackpad wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 8 year old has only experienced real-time broadcast television when staying at a hotel, where he was frustrated and perplexed that we couldn't rewind it (he has no clue where the concept of rewinding really comes from). He has always experienced media he can control on YouTube or Netflix. I can't imagine he'd ever subscribe to something like cable in the future. Maybe if TV could associate itself with Minecraft so…

I went to see the last Batman franchise film last year, which I found horribly boring. I actually had a moment where my hands reached out in the dark for the fast-forward button, which took me by surprise as to how used I am to having those controls now. I'm well into my 30s so I can only imagine how reactive it is for young kids to not have this ability.

That's the exact reason why I love the movie theater: no one has any control at all outside of walking out, so everyone pushes their ADHD to the side and commits to the movie for two hours. Once the movie is over, you might still think it was shitty and a waste of time, but at least you gave it a fair shot.

Try watching a slow movie like Gattaca at home, with a dozen devices and apps competing to take your attention away, and see how many people drift off and watch it from the corner of an eye or don't even finish it at all. Does the movie deserve that? Maybe; if only short-form content or frenetic Avengers-like action can hold people's attention from start to finish, then that's how it is. But I, for one, appreciate immensely when people commit fully to something, the way it was intended to, for better or for worse.

And that's why I love the movie theater.

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#66

Post by philwelch »

VLM wrote: post #59
andyl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - these graphs show 20-46 hours of viewing per week . Per week. I had no idea.

The data is bogus. A full time job with modest overtime... watching TV? There is not physically enough time in the week.

20 hours over the weekend plus 4 hours a day at night. It's possible.

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#67

Post by VLM »

Another interesting aspect of the discussion, not discussed much, is what will the new purpose be for TV?

What I'm getting at is people used to go to movies to see a movie. But thats technologically obsolete and frankly with all the previews and ads and hyper expensive junk food its too offensive to experience. However, movie theaters currently exist, and will exist in the future, solely for younger teens dating / makeout sessions, a social party atmosphere, that kind of stuff. And thats apparently a lower level yet stable and mostly constant line of business.

So what will the TV analogy be after most people no longer watch TV? My guess is sport fanatics (despite the stats showing dramatic declines in watching pro sports). Also I think mindless shovelware while people eat. Propaganda such as religious shows or news reporting? Imagine a world with only three cable channels remain, EWTN, ESPN, and Foxnews.

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#68

Post by bowlofpetunias »

bluthru wrote: post #5

Making me turn on the TV at a specific time and date to watch something is such alien notion to me at this point. All of these shows worry about schedules and what's on other networks, but that's eventually not going to matter at all.

Actually, yesterday evening (European time) I did exactly that for the first time in a long time for anything other than sports.

Of course, the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is an anachronistic bit of nostalgia for many reasons.

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#69

Post by marquis »

peferron wrote: post #65
marquis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to see the last Batman franchise film last year, which I found horribly boring. I actually had a moment where my hands reached out in the dark for the fast-forward button, which took me by surprise as to how used I am to having those controls now. I'm well into my 30s so I can only imagine how reactive it is for young kids to not have this ability.

That's the exact reason why I love the movie theater: no one has any control at all outside of walking out, so everyone pushes their ADHD to the side and commits to the movie for two hours. Once the movie is over, you might still think it was shitty and a waste of time, but at least you gave it a fair shot. Try watching a slow movie like Gattaca at home, with a dozen devices and apps competing to take your attention…

I completely agree. For just a short time in your life, you can let go and trust the author with your mind. Having said that, when it comes to Batman 3 my mind was very annoyed (and would have left if it weren't for friends).

Re: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

#70

Post by GhotiFish »

purringmeow wrote: post #36
bluthru wrote: post #5

Making me turn on the TV at a specific time and date to watch something is such alien notion to me at this point. All of these shows worry about schedules and what's on other networks, but that's eventually not going to matter at all.

And that's not all! Insane copyright prevents a lot of people from legally watching popular series. I am in Europe and there is no legal way for me to watch say "The Walking Dead" or any other series. So what do I do when I don't get proper service? Piracy - it gives me on demand HQ content. I wonder when TV networks will move into the 21st century. The next network delivers cheap, on demand HD content worldwide will…

There is a growing chorus saying that piracy is at fault for degrading the services we get in media.

If piracy never existed at all, imagine how insane those restrictions would be now. They would charge per minute, they would charge for pausing, they would charge for recording. It would be state by state, province by province by province, town by town.

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