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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

#121

Post by pan69 »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #97
pan69 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not to sure what you're trying to say but to me it sounds like you're implying that Google owes people who want to create video content a living. That Google should supply tools and a monetisation model to people who want to make a living of making videos. I don't think it works that way. Google does what it thinks is best for them and if the current model is that, than so be it. You rightfully pointed out some s…

Owes? Hardly. But it's stupid for them not to. Someone who earns a living via their videos is someone who is able to continue to do so, which draws in more viewers and keeps the talent within youtube's purview. Also, the more tools youtube provides for monetization and the more money flowing into creators bank accounts the more money youtube can make by taking a percentage, instead of having to rely solely on ad doll…

It's funny that you bring this up. The only reason Elvis and The Beatles were able to make money is because of the distribution format of music at the time. This distribution format has drastically changed in the past 10 years. Everyone nowadays pretty much streams (and copies) their music which means that music isn't sold in "units" anymore. Hence why the all so mighty record companies were, and are, in such an uproar.

I think it was Mick Jagger who said something like that the time we've lived in was kinda special. There has been no time in the history of humanity where musicians were able to make such amounts of money and those times are pretty much gone. If you're an emerging artist, whether a musician, movie maker or what ever, you're pretty much to par with the troubadours of the middle ages.

Going back to Google, I think Google pretty well understand the ad market more than anyone else on the planet and if there's money to be made they will and it seems that your view isn't aligned with theirs.

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

#122

Post by cmsmith »

jseliger wrote: post #94
shiftpgdn wrote: post #3

Good riddance. I cut the cord about a year and a half ago and replaced my cable box with a Roku box. There was a brief period where I missed the background noise but now I find broadcast/cable television unbearably grating. Frankly I think the cable companies brought it upon themselves with the constant loud commercial interruptions, the garbage programming, and the utterly miserable cable box interfaces.

Good riddance The downside is that cable subscribers subsidize the handful of TV shows I actually want to watch. Individually, every person who quits makes a rational decision, but when everyone quits we don't get a lot of good shows. Maybe Netflix or Amazon or whoever will take up the slack. Or maybe those shows will just go away.

This is an important point that everyone really misses.

Cable companies make (50M subscribers * $100 /month * 12 mo/yr)=60B dollars per year. TV advertising is another $80B /year. Overhead and profit might eat up 20-50% of that, but we're still left with a bill, to create the TV we want to watch, of a few hundred dollars per US man, woman, and child.

Why would people imagine that we can replace that market with a hundred million $8/month netflix subscriptions and not see a decline in the availability of quality programming?

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

#123

Post by gvb »

_wp3r wrote: post #34
ljd wrote: post #27

I cut the Time Warner Cable cord in Q3 as well. We have an Apple TV which plays Netflix, Hulu, PBS, Rented Movies, Music and YouTube. After 2-3 months of us never switching off of the Apple TV HDMI port, I told the kids I was going to cancel cable which they could never find anything of substance to watch anyway and they didn't even put up a fight. None of us watch sports so there was virtually no reason to keep cabl…

Over the air has been exceedingly hit or miss for me also. Even after the equipment the actual delivery seems very scattered. I know in my head that the delivery of digital with correction should be better than analog, but the experience simply is not. I am not a electrical engineer, so can anyone shed light on why the range for channels on digital is so much lower than it was with analog, also is weather much more i…

The simplistic answer is that they are cramming a lot more information into less bandwidth. Analog TV resolution was 640 × 480 (approximately)[1] where digital TV is 1920 x 1080 [2]. Digital also aggravates reception issues because it doesn't degrade gracefully. Instead of "snow" and color issues, it goes all blocky and then takes a couple of seconds to resynchronize... if it recovers.

The Shannon–Hartley theorem[3] relates the necessary signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) that is required to cram a given amount if information into a given amount of bandwidth. Digital TV uses a lot of compression to reduce the amount of information that has to be crammed through the pipe and extremely sophisticated encoding to cram a bunch of bits into each symbol (baud[4]), but, at the end of the day, you have to have an adequate S/N ratio (good enough reception) to decode the signal.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC "Each frame is composed of two fields, each consisting of 262.5 scan lines, for a total of 525 scan lines. 483 scan lines make up the visible raster."

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baud

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

#124

Post by clarebear »

When we stayed in a hotel and my preschool kids were subjected to cable, they were confused and angry. Why couldn't they choose the program they wanted? And on e they found a program that was acceptable, why did it keep stopping? They actually thought we were punishing them with commercials and could not figure out what they were doing wrong. Interesting to see it through their eyes.

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

#125

Post by antidaily »

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?

The thought of using Verizon only for all my internet usage frightens me.

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

#126

Post by jcromartie »

paul9290 wrote: post #58
shiftpgdn wrote: post #3

Good riddance. I cut the cord about a year and a half ago and replaced my cable box with a Roku box. There was a brief period where I missed the background noise but now I find broadcast/cable television unbearably grating. Frankly I think the cable companies brought it upon themselves with the constant loud commercial interruptions, the garbage programming, and the utterly miserable cable box interfaces.

I have my Mac mini connected to my TV. With this set up I can watch marathons of whatever TV show I want on various legal streaming sites. Thus providing same background noise you speak of.

I've found that some sites (at least Amazon) don't allow HD streaming on PCs, while they do allow it on dedicated devices (Apple TV or PS3, for instance). I was all ready to ditch the Apple TV and use a full-fledged PC and then that happened.

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

#127

Post by arbitrage »

krapp wrote: post #99
saryant wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Doctor Who now broadcast the same day in the US as in the UK? I know the last season was. And it's available next day on iTunes. That excuse doesn't really hold up here.

I don't have/am not willing to pay for BBC America...

Especially when they edit the episodes weirdly and have a whole raft of crap instead of BBC programs one might actually want to watch.

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

#128

Post by PhantomGremlin »

gibybo wrote: post #93
spiritplumber wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly never -- the satellites would just be repurposed. Sending mass to geostationary is EXPENSIVE. Like, 100k$/kilogram.

I've been wondering what Direct TV will do with its satellites in 10-20 years when it doesn't make sense to use them for TV anymore. I haven't been able to imagine any significant uses, have you? There's weather services (for ships and aircraft outside of ground station range), radio (but this is really niche), high latency internet (for, say, cruise ships), maybe some other small niche services. But what's going to…

Direct TV's current satellites won't last another 10 or 20 years. They are constantly replacing them with newer technology.

I don't think things are as dire as you suggest, but worst-case DTV simply won't replace the satellites as they wear out.

Orbital slots are valuable, but I don't think those are actually owned by DTV. If they're not using a slot, then someone else is free to ask the FCC for it. Which means that it behooves DTV to find something else to do with the slot. E.g. Internet.

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

#129

Post by [deleted] »

cmsmith wrote: post #122
jseliger wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good riddance The downside is that cable subscribers subsidize the handful of TV shows I actually want to watch. Individually, every person who quits makes a rational decision, but when everyone quits we don't get a lot of good shows. Maybe Netflix or Amazon or whoever will take up the slack. Or maybe those shows will just go away.

This is an important point that everyone really misses. Cable companies make (50M subscribers * $100 /month * 12 mo/yr)=60B dollars per year. TV advertising is another $80B /year. Overhead and profit might eat up 20-50% of that, but we're still left with a bill, to create the TV we want to watch, of a few hundred dollars per US man, woman, and child. Why would people imagine that we can replace that market with a hun…

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by [deleted] »

cmsmith wrote: post #122
jseliger wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good riddance The downside is that cable subscribers subsidize the handful of TV shows I actually want to watch. Individually, every person who quits makes a rational decision, but when everyone quits we don't get a lot of good shows. Maybe Netflix or Amazon or whoever will take up the slack. Or maybe those shows will just go away.

This is an important point that everyone really misses. Cable companies make (50M subscribers * $100 /month * 12 mo/yr)=60B dollars per year. TV advertising is another $80B /year. Overhead and profit might eat up 20-50% of that, but we're still left with a bill, to create the TV we want to watch, of a few hundred dollars per US man, woman, and child. Why would people imagine that we can replace that market with a hun…

[deleted]
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