When cable first began you could see movies that had been in
the theater now in the comfort of your own home. Movies you wanted to see but
could not were made available to you. You could watch local and national
shows. The world of entertainment, news,
education opened up. And it was good.
Fast forward to 2012 and the model for cable is now an
archaic formula to squeeze as much money out of as it can. We have moved from several dozen stations to
in some cases hundreds of stations. HBO has six or seven different stations of
its own. You can watch things in most major languages. If you are a sports
fanatic then you never have to leave your house because you can watch it all.
What is wrong with this? Well the high pricing
structure and lack of a la cart is what killed it for me.
When I had the full cable package from U-verse I spent the
vast majority of my time sitting in my comfortable recliner and flipping
stations. Well to be more accurate I flipped through the programming guide
looking for something to watch. While
the DVR was great I more often than not skipped whole swaths of programming and
ended up watching Big Bang Theory reruns.
I ignored the political crap. I ignored the news crap. I
ignored the foreign language crap. I ignored the sports crap. That left me with
the networks, cable stations such as TNT and USA, and the premium. And I spent more time searching for something
to watch that we finally decided to drop the premium stations. This meant that
I would lose out on Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, and others. Sure I missed out but I can always get them
through Netflix once it comes out on disk.
So now I only have the network and cable stations. Once
again I spent the majority of the time flipping stations. I would try to find
something new to watch but again ended up watching Sheldon and crew try to make
senses of American popular culture. So, in the end we dropped our cable all
together.
In its stead we subscribe to Netflix and Hulu plus. I can get the vast majority of the network
shows on Hulu, a lot of old content through Netflix, and if it is on neither of
them I can typically view them through the station website.
The point of this rant – it is the 21st century
and you’d think that the content providers would go ahead and make deals to get
more people to view their content. If I
don’t have HBO I have to visit a friend’s house or risk attempting to download
illegally the latest episode of Game of Thrones. HBO has an online portal but you have to have
cable to view it.
The value of cable had dropped dramatically in the age of
the internet. More people are dropping cable in favor of streaming
sources. I would pay $5-$10 a month to
access HBO through the internet, maybe more.
Instead I’m trapped in packages that I don’t want, don’t need, and will
never use. I can pay $2 an episode
through Amazon or iTunes, but again I’m getting taken to the cleaners to keep
up on the shows I like.
Cable companies are shaking in their boots as more and more
people cut the cord. You now have the internet, online gaming, video games,
streaming video to entertain yourself with. No longer are people locked to
their TV set unless the big game is on. Why should I pay a premium for 80% stations I
will never watch? In my news feeds I can
check mark the things I want to view and ignore those that I don’t. Why isn’t
there a cable package like this? Money, pure and simple.
The cable companies have too much time, too much money, and
too many resources in the current system. Most of the executives are trying to
grasp at a bygone era as the modern age passes them by . So many stations would
disappear if they were not bundled in with anything. All those artsy stations or those catering to
a small demographic would have to come up with major advertising revenue or
shudder themselves. Supply and demand
baby.
My entertainment dollars are very precious and I am very
careful how I spend them. In this
economy you have to be. I am hopeful that the old business model for cable goes
the way of the long distance calls and local calling plans. I suspect we’ll
have peace in the Middle East and something actually pass through Congress with
bipartisan support before it happens. /endrant
There are too many people who either can't get decent Internet or none at all, but can get cable, for them to do away with it completely. I agree that they should have gone to an ala carte system long ago.
ReplyDeleteI cancelled cable in late 2008 and haven't really missed after the first couple months of weirdness passed.. It's all reality nonsense now anyway.
ReplyDelete