Not Since 1991 Has Cable TV Subscriber Numbers Been So Low

[Anonymous 1]

I personally only use Television for a few shows that I like, but there’s precious little of quality to see on TV anymore.

What I “watch” mostly are youtube videos through my PS4 on the TV, only stuff that I like / is useful to know.

If I could dump the TV part of my internet connection package, I would, but you can’t anymore.

[Anonymous 11]

I cut the cord a few years ago. I’ll watch some of the over the air channels mainly old pre-PC sitcoms and movies. I like to stream things, because my schedule is very unpredictable other than I awaken with the chickens.

I hear of people with $250 monthly packages which is insane. Luckily, my ISP has no issues selling me non-bundled connections. If I could get local channels and say 15 favorites Bombast could get $25 to $30 more dollars a month out of me. The passive nature of a TV is a good break from these computers.

[GrumpyParticipant]

OldBill wrote:

Canada recently allowed ala carte pricing and the cable companies in the US are watching developments there very closely.

In my experience the CRTC ruling was just a political move of appeasement. It had no real effect of what “channels” I or any consumer could freely pick and choose from.
All the service providers did was rebundle the crap into smaller packages for “less” money with individual “premium” channels costing between $3-$8 each, while simultaneously increasing the ratio of advertisements to content, including “flash” commercials during the actual show, even on “commercial free” channels.

The basic package (20-30 channels for $35.00 min) must be purchased in order to use the “ala carte” option.
The tier packages are constructed in such a way that you pay for 30 -40 channels in each package, to gain access to the few channels you want to watch. Not surprisingly the good channels are spread across the packages so that you end up buying the top end package.
Also the ToS changes almost monthly, and has a caveat of “subject to change without notice”.

Currently I have 43 channels, which I only “watch” 3 “ala carte” channels periodically and only listen to 2 of the 150 “free” music channels.
The last time I watched the history channel, (Viking’s) I timed the actual program (17 minutes) vs the commercials (40 minutes) including constants flashes on the bottom 20% of the screen.
Now I just buy the DVD/Blurays for any series I’m interested in.

There was a time in my life when I gave a fuck. Now you have to pay ME for it

[IRuleMeParticipant]

One thing I never understood about cable was, originally, cable networks could get away with cursing and nudity and all kinds of stuff because it was PAID service. As opposed to free tv. Nowadays, the paid cable channels treat their programs like free tv. They show a girl getting naked, but won’t show her naked. They show sex scenes, but show no skin, and then cut away. Like wtf… I’m PAYING for this. This isn’t free tv here. This is premium tv. But no. Now they changed the game. So that only select stations like HBO, Cinemax and others have have nudity in movies.

[EekParticipant 1162]

I actually just ditched cable TV this last weekend, would have done it a long time ago but my housemates still wanted it.

IRuleMe wrote:

One thing I never understood about cable was, originally, cable networks could get away with cursing and nudity and all kinds of stuff because it was PAID service. As opposed to free tv. Nowadays, the paid cable channels treat their programs like free tv. They show a girl getting naked, but won’t show her naked. They show sex scenes, but show no skin, and then cut away. Like wtf… I’m PAYING for this. This isn’t free tv here. This is premium tv. But no. Now they changed the game. So that only select stations like HBO, Cinemax and others have have nudity in movies.

This is due to the fact that the over the air TV frequencies are licensed by the FCC who can enforce decency standards. Cable started as a private service, that didn’t have to adhere to the broadcast tv standards. The “think of the children” whining brigade has watered that down with voluntary ratings and such over the years.

[Secret Agent MGTOWParticipant 22534]

Yup, streaming internet via kodi running on some hardware platform. Or something similar. When magicjack finally made their device that could work without having a dedicated PC on 24/7/365 I got that too.

Women want everything, but want responsibility and accountability for nothing.

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