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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

#41
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 through services like Netflix; they make less money up front, but the 'long tail' gets fatter for quality or cult shows.

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

#42
I wonder if switching from Analog signals to Digital has contributed to this...

Not only do you have to buy the receiver box, which craps out and has a separate remote and interface, but Digital TV has really really terrible reception. I live in a large metro area and even we have tons of problems with reception, I can't image what it's like for people who live out further.

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

#43
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.

Yeah, many of them are either out with friends or online gaming like my little brother.

When I was a kid we came home and watched Pokemon, CardCaptor Sakura, Yu-Gi-Oh, every afternoon. All those cartoons are gone now.

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

#44
post #34
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…

OTA can be tricky because its not as simple as just throwing up an antenna and calling it a day, the system has to be engineered. Check out www.tvfool.com for some great info on properly designing a system. Also, avsforum.com has some great info.

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

#45
post #15

TV still has plenty of life in it. Be careful of those graphs with a non-zero y-axis minimum. But there is a shift happening. The biggest question to me is whether brand advertising dollars are/can/will shift with it. We need new ad products. Especially ones that will reach younger audiences who avoid current ad products. Maybe opportunities for Snapchat/Twitter. Also, content production is going to see some challeng…

TV is in its heyday. Dramas are at the highest quality they've ever been.

The protocol, cable (and satellite), is dying. Almost nobody in my age range, or younger (late 20s), has cable. Everyone has Netflix along with some other streaming services combined with iTunes purchases and such. If you want to watch live sports, the NFL is free over the air, you'll just miss out on the NBA (oh well).

Cable television has no reason to exist. Get rid of it and use the bandwidth for streaming. I just bought a TV after not having one for half a year, and briefly considered getting Time Warner. After seeing what they charge for the basic service, along with $16/month for the "equipment rental," why would I bother? Life is better without cable anyways, the garbage on there just stresses me out and makes me hate our society! You do not need CNN, my life is so peaceful not knowing what their talking heads are spewing off about.

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

#46
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.

"You mean everybody had to sit down and watch the same thing at the same time?" -- kids of the tomorrow

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

#47

I wonder if switching from Analog signals to Digital has contributed to this... Not only do you have to buy the receiver box, which craps out and has a separate remote and interface, but Digital TV has really really terrible reception. I live in a large metro area and even we have tons of problems with reception, I can't image what it's like for people who live out further.

A tiny minority of TV viewers were relying on broadcast both before and after the transition to digital. Those that were, also aren't the same demographic that are not "cutting the cord."

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

#48
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…

A lot of it isn't exactly copyright, it's contractual obligation, I suspect. In America, the "old guard" networks are still tied to local affiliate stations, which are increasingly anchors rather than efficient distribution points. International distribution has always been a maze of weird contractual obligations, but just like the American local affiliate problem, it's a case of "it made sense at the time." The problem now is that there are still people making money from the way things are and they're going to fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.

> I wonder when TV networks will move into the 21st century.

2016. That sounds glib, but that's my real prediction: my suspicion is that a lot of contracts are going to be coming up for renewal over the next 3-5 years and either they're not going to be renewed or they're going to take vastly different forms.

The big problem is figuring out what "cheap" actually means, of course. Internet users sometimes seem to have kind of unrealistic expectations about pricing.

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

#49
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.

"You mean everybody had to sit down and watch the same thing at the same time?" -- kids of the tomorrow

Tomorrow? My kids right now! And they're 19 and 14, mind you.

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

#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?

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