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AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

dealbook.nytimes.com

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Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#161

Post by beedogs »

untothebreach wrote: post #139
dba7dba wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cable = Sports is why I am not watching ANY sports other than little snippets I can grab on youtube or mlb.com. Seriously. Have not watched a full game (definitely not MLB, NFL, NBA) of anything in a LONG time. And none in family (yes little kids too) are watching much sports on TV either. Definitely not enough to grow up to be a fan of a particular pro sports league or a team, other than soccer via AYSO. IMHO pro sp…

My one regret with cutting the cord was that I gave up my precious Red Wings. NHL.com has a yearly subscription to watch the games online, but paying for that meant that I would have paid just as much for cutting the cord, as I did for having cable.

Really? Isn't it only like $100 for the entire year?

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#162

Post by alrs »

alrs wrote: post #75
canvia wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people don't care about sports either. eSports like they have on Twitch.tv are more and more popular. A $35 leaf antenna from amazon gets you all the local HD channels for free.

I'm embarrassed for people that post about spectator sports on social media.

Apparently I'm not?

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#163

Post by zequel »

alrs wrote: post #75
canvia wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people don't care about sports either. eSports like they have on Twitch.tv are more and more popular. A $35 leaf antenna from amazon gets you all the local HD channels for free.

I'm embarrassed for people that post about spectator sports on social media.

I know, right? People wanting to talk about a common subject among their friends via social media!! And those people talking about the weather in the elevator! Simpletons.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#164

Post by untothebreach »

beedogs wrote: post #161
untothebreach wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My one regret with cutting the cord was that I gave up my precious Red Wings. NHL.com has a yearly subscription to watch the games online, but paying for that meant that I would have paid just as much for cutting the cord, as I did for having cable.

Really? Isn't it only like $100 for the entire year?

last time I checked it was $165. not a significant sum, but enough to mostly cancel out what we were paying for cable

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#165

Post by exelius »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #160
exelius wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is not a replacement for a traditional pay-TV video service, nor will it be. It's really more of a premium channel like HBO or Showtime -- both of which already offer streaming for a similar price as Netflix. I see the industry going one of two ways: 1) Cable TV over Internet -- in this scenario your cable subscription just becomes an app that runs on a wide variety of devices. Watch live TV, DVR, on-demand,…

I am not disagreeing with you in general, but for me Netflix really could be a replacement for traditional channels. Not too OT: I am visiting my Dad and yesterday morning we saw the new Godzilla movie in IMAX 3D and later last night watched Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" which was such a better experience than Godzilla. Old movie/TV technology done artfully beats less artful tech. Netflix can deliver old and some n…

Yeah; there is more than one use case for viewing video, one of which is on-demand video. Netflix does really well there. But it doesn't handle "event" TV (think sports events or American Idol) or the "I'm bored and don't want to have to think about what to watch" use case. Those two are huge, and while I think that eventually those use cases will change generationally, the 30+ demographic isn't likely to change their viewing habits any time soon.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#166

Post by cylinder »

untothebreach wrote: post #164
beedogs wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Isn't it only like $100 for the entire year?

last time I checked it was $165. not a significant sum, but enough to mostly cancel out what we were paying for cable

I highly doubt you were paying $14/mo for cable TV.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#167

Post by cylinder »

icantthinkofone wrote: post #133
dba7dba wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cable = Sports is why I am not watching ANY sports other than little snippets I can grab on youtube or mlb.com. Seriously. Have not watched a full game (definitely not MLB, NFL, NBA) of anything in a LONG time. And none in family (yes little kids too) are watching much sports on TV either. Definitely not enough to grow up to be a fan of a particular pro sports league or a team, other than soccer via AYSO. IMHO pro sp…

What's funny is I would sign up for MLB.com in an instant if I could watch the local game but they block that so I'm out.

Get a VPN or use a DNS "hack" ...

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#168

Post by dkulchenko »

jmcphers wrote: post #154
dkulchenko wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Kirkland (a suburb of Seattle). Paying Comcast $50/month for "Blast Plus" which is 50 mbps + TV, while it's ~$69 for just 50mbps internet. Both are "promo rates" (aka call the retention dpt. once they run out and you'll get them for another year).

Kirkland resident here, too. Have you looked into Frontier FiOS? We pay $40/month for Internet, non-promo and no TV. (I don't think they've laid fiber optic to every neighborhood in the city yet.)

Frontier's awesome, but they're not available in any apartments in the area and they've ceased fiber expansion a few years back :/

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#169

Post by gnoway »

skizm wrote: post #52
brewdad wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most sports? Hardly. Sure you can, in theory, watch American Football, Rest of the World Football, basketball, and baseball on ESPN3, but if you want to see these sports played by teams that matter then you need regular ESPN or a cable subscription to view them. All the games that matter were removed from the ESPN3 lineup at least a couple of years ago.

ESPN3 access gives you access to all espn channels including regular espn. I use it every day for sports center and baseball.

This is not true. Unless something has changed recently, college football on ESPNU is not shown on ESPN3. This has caused more than one game I cared about to be (legally) unviewable for me.
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