"Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded."
Walter Abbott, (b. 1950), Media observer, blogger and commentator
ping
Really the only reason we keep our cable is the convenience of just flipping through channels. It’s easier than figuring out which show you want to watch and typing it in online. TV is still better video quality in many cases, though that is changing.
The ability to see anything immediately rather than having to hunt for it is really the only remaining reason.
We really like our Dish system, but it really rubs me the wrong way to be paying for the left wing channels we get with our package.
It seems like each month we have more non English channels on from Hispanic to various Asian channels.
Our choices should be like what we choose in a cafeteria, not something the do gooders want for free. So I’m all for a la carte pricing for cable and satellite. All CNN channels have been blocked since we had our Dish system installed in 2000.
“One factor that could hasten cable’s fall is federally mandated a la carte pricing, according to Gordon Crawford, managing director of The Capital Group and a veteran media investor who also participated in the roundtable discussion on media’s future. Allowing consumers to pay for only the programs they want to view could mean the demise of two-thirds of niche cable channels that are otherwise assured revenues through existing bulk carriage agreements anchored by the universally popular likes of ESPN and CNN, Crawford said..
“The days you could protect those non-consumer friendly business models are gone,” Chernin quipped. His investment advice to others: Stay out of the US and western Europe, and away from broadcast, newspapers and traditional media.”
I think cable TV—especially with QAM-encoded digital channels—will survive because they won’t suffer the bandwidth transmission issues that plague Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). And because digital cable TV can offer around 150-175 channels of programming, program selection is less of an issue, too.
and with Comcast out there p*ssing off all of their customers at the retail level, it will happen sooner rather than later
I hope some of these big conservative sites are working on their own online TV channels right now. CBN did it, National Review, FrontPage Mag and others should do it too.