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survey released this week by Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research found, for the first time, that Americans are more willing to give up TV than the Internet.
Asked to choose the ”most essential” medium, 42 percent of the survey’s 1,753 respondents picked the Internet, 37 percent picked TV, 14 percent said radio and 5 percent said those dead-tree format newspapers.
That represents more evidence that major telecommunications companies will need to lasso control of the Internet before the cable television profit train derails. That’s because the Internet delivers the prospect of a two-for-one deal. Enjoy your online web surfing -and- stream your favorite television shows online at the same time — no more ever-increasing cable-TV bill for channels you never asked for and don’t watch.
Even more worrying for big cable — young people are increasingly never bothering to sign up for cable television in the first place. In the 18-24 age group, 74 percent said they would quit TV before surrendering the Web, and many never bothered with subscription television to begin with.
The last time Arbitron and Edison posed this question in a survey was in 2001, back when dial-up access still predominated. Back then, 72 percent of respondents said they could do without Internet and 26 percent said they’d give up TV.
“The shift over these nine years has been steady and profound,” said Edison Research president Larry Rosin.
Some consumers don’t want to watch television over their computers and would prefer to be entertained in a comfortable chair in the living room. But Internet video innovation is increasingly solving that problem by coupling your television or DVD player to the web. Several providers like Netflix even deliver their streaming video service through video game consoles.
How do cable companies stop the herd mentality to broadband video, leaving those big cable TV bills behind? Stick a meter on broadband service, and charge consumers for every TV show they watch or simply put a limit on their broadband service. The broadband usage cap or meter can, indeed, kill the online video star.
http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WJW Cleveland The Download Internet More Important Than TV 4-9-10.flvWJW-TV in Cleveland reports that more people are ready to ditch their televisions than being willing to part with their Internet connection. (3 minutes)
Other stories of interest:
- Americans Embrace New Ways to Watch TV Without Fundamentally Changing Old Habits; Providers Feel Threatened Anyway
- The Wall Street Journal Quotes Stop the Cap! Founder & Addresses Internet Overcharging Schemes
- Your Life Transformed By Broadband: The Internet Of Things…
- OnLive Game Cloud Demonstrated – Its Biggest Threat? Usage Cap Happy Internet Service Providers
- Everything New is Always a Threat to Everything Old – The Cable TV Monster
Video innovation? That is going to take awhile to sink into my head.
This video innovation is a driving issue that are making for all the
problems we deal with today. Before this video innovation we never
had a problem with rates, caps, or limits. Internet video is killing
it all. Unless you have big pockets, and you are taking the rest of us
down with you. I don’t want to pay in any form for you and your inabilty
to not live without that video you seem to find so necessary. The
system was not build for this and the way things are going it won’t
be for another 20 years. You may be able to find a way around this
but you can count on a $200 + bill a month. Even our Verizon we
thought would lift us up is re thinking and talking about big money
rather then just service and speed. Fiber rings have been talked
about but did any ever pan out yet? That was a question. I consider
fiber to be be a direct tap off the main wire direct to my house in FIBER
also. No copper.
I not only would rather give up cable instead of internet, I did give up cable over internet about 8 or 9 years ago. I haven’t missed it. Cable companies have really got themselves in a place where they don’t understand the customer’s needs or wants. They are in a place much the same as the big three auto makers were a few years ago. They want to tell you what product you get and if you don’t like it, well tough you will have to buy anyway. Trouble is the customer does not like being told what he/she can have. We hold the money. Anger us enough and we will withhold it enough to cripple you. As soon as a real competitor enters the Rochester market TWC will see an exodus from their customer base of biblical proportions.
I too as you gave it up a few years ago. I do miss it once and awhile. But what I do not miss is the 60 dollar a month haircut. 25->60 in less than 10 years? Im sorry but the service was no longer cost effective for me to keep. They also did not keep up with changes in the market. People wanted DVR’s but instead of finding ways to make DVR’s work better they wanted to co-op that market and rent it out at 5-10 bucks a month. Then forcing all the ‘new’ stuff that they put out on to the ‘digital tier’ (which conveniently only works with their new DVR’s) then saying ‘to improve my service we are raising your rates.’ Instead of competing with new services from netflix and blockbuster they raised the rates on their movie channels. For the same price (as their intro rates) I get 1 month of netflix with streaming on demand. Satellite was better for awhile price wise however they very quickly ‘fell in line’ with cable. I can BUY whole seasons of whatever I want to watch for less than it costs to ‘rent’ it during the 1 hour periods things are on.
What they are trying to spin is the fact that they are selling less and less service for more and more price. They are not competing on convince or price. So yeah people are leaving as there are better alternatives out there that cost LESS.
I think a la carte programming would be the solution to the problem. Let the market decide. I mean that is the basis of our Capitalistic society, right? Well, some people say it won’t work or will drive prices up. I say, let’s give it a try. Yea Network A might think their programming is worth X amount but if the public doesn’t think so, they are going to have to lower the price. Anyway, that is my 2 cents…
If a la catre was offered and I could pick 10 or 15 channels for less than $30-35 a month while not needing a digital box on every TV, I would likely buy service from them.
The cable company is just a middle man charging to deliver content. They don’t produce content. They just deliver content. As such the cost to deliver that content should not keep going up in cost like it has been. They don’t make anything new. All they have to do is service the lines and ensure they deliver a quality signal to the end user.
Just like the internet, they don’t make content. They provide a path for the content. They just can’t accept that they have a limited range for charging to deliver content.
We cut Cable TV, but kept the Cable Internet service, this past January. Haven’t missed it. It was mostly used for kid’s shows. So, we cut it and the digital phone, slashed our bill down $100 a month. We can buy a lot of kid’s DVDs at Wal-mart/Target for that! We’ve started waiting until shows are on DVD via Netflix for TV well before we cut the cord, too. Have to wait a while to see them, but can watch several episodes in a short period of time. It’s a lot more convenient. Looking into getting a Blu-ray player with Netflix and/or Hulu streaming support, because hooking the laptop up to the TV just isn’t convenient.
The old TV network and scheduling system is not going to be viable in a few years. Digital distribution of music has killed the album, and digital distribution of video is going to kill the network/cable channel.
[...] cutting continue to be discussed on several newscasts airing around the country, prompted by an Arbitron study showing Americans are more willing to give up their televisions than forgo the [...]