Posted on 04/04/2012 9:01:19 AM PDT by servo1969
The rise of streaming television is something I've been covering rather obsessively on my Daily Call Sheet for going on a year now. Not because I have any kind of inside information or data, but because if you connect the dots of the hundreds of various news stories that have been written about the phenomenon, you can see that something seismic is happening.
Bundled cable is evil, and through this evil we are forced to not only pay for dozens and sometimes hundreds of channels we never watch, but we're also forced to pay for and subsidize channels that offend our values: Sundance, MSNBC, PBS, Current TV, OWN... This is un-Amercan. It's welfare and affirmative action combined. A number of these channels would collapse without the evil of bundled cable fees because you can't pay Rachel Maddow's salary on Sham-wow commercials alone. Worse still, these cable packages are absurdly expensive -- especially for those of us old enough to remember when the cost of television was the price of a pair or rabbit ears.
So along comes Netflix and Hulu with the idea of providing -- for less than $10 a month -- a streaming service that allows you to watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it. Better still, there are no commercials. And anyone who has recently watched "Celebrity Apprentice" or anything on the Discovery Channel knows that the length and frequency of commercial interruptions have gotten obscenely out of hand.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I’m one of them, I dumped TV!!! Currently, I use an antenna and Channel Master HD/DVR with dual tuners to pick up/DVR around 45 free OTA stations. Couple that with netflix, and my family now watches a lot less TV, but we enjoy the little we do watch. No more mindlessly watching Pawn Stars, Chopped, Storage Wars, etc..
I recommend it for all.
The only issue is the cable sports, and even that can be worked around. For the naysayers when it comes to that, it’s the only time I am actually forced to watch commercials ;)
hulu commercials are too creapy to entice me to go to their product. (not with so many other options)
You either have to be stooopid, or rich with money to burn.
We’ve never had cable. Probably never will. We have an old fashioned TV Antenna. With a $30 power booster, we’re able to get about 25 channels.
Kids get movies from the library or Redbox. We haven’t done the Hulu thing too much but probably will soon.
When I travel for work, I find that I only watch a few channels anyway. FOX, Discovery, History, SPEED.
I finally walked into the local cable office last week and dropped the TV portion of my bundle, saving at least $80 of the $160 they’ve been billing me. I still get internet and phone from them. When I told the customer service person that I just don’t watch TV anymore other than streaming, she said “Me either, and I wouldn’t have it if I didn’t get it for free because of this job.”
TV used to be "free".
Now they got all the tax paying peon to pay to watch their commercials, which have already been paid for.
45 years ago, they told ya it would all be commercial free, for a small fee.
it's one of the biggest con jobs ever.
And there is part of our problem. Nothing is free, never was, never will be.
Well Tex, you're free to pay to watch their endless commercials...Be my guest!
There is a sucker born ever minute!
BEWAHAHAHAHAHAH
Satelite tv is not much better.
I can proudly say that I haven’t watched TV for about 5 years.
It’s liberating.
One thing I will never do is move to a major major area to get more OTA TV channels. We get around 5 here: plenty. I actually watch PBS HD on occasion just for the nature shows. The author was bitching about PBS being bundled but I would miss those.
You completely miss the point about “free” and then you make the assumption that I actually watch TV.
Strike two.
TV used to be "free".
Now they got all the tax paying peon to pay to watch their commercials, which have already been paid for.
45 years ago, they told ya it would all be commercial free, for a small fee.
it's one of the biggest con jobs ever.
And there is part of our problem. Nothing is free, never was, never will be.
Well Tex, you're free to pay to watch their endless commercials...Be my guest!
There is a sucker born ever minute!
You completely miss the point about “free”
No I didn't because you're wrong.
TV wasn't free 40 years ago.
Ya see Tex the advertisers paid big money to the broadcasters to run their commercials 40 years ago, just like they do today, however, the fat corps got really greedy, and decided to also make the sucker subscribers to pay to watch commercials after they told Americans, "Pay TV will be commercial free".
Cord-cutting may be real, but providers will still get their pound of flesh.
Take Comcast, the internet provider for a lot of folks. Once enough people start cutting the cable bill, you’ll see a corresponding rise in the cost of internet connectivity. They’ll still win. AND, if people start to claim that a internet connection is a “right”, and demand regulation of said rates like a utility, we’ll begin to see stagnation. Cable is subsidizing the internet connection.
Dump cable and save some money for the time being, but don’t buy the illusion it will always be this way.
TV wasn't free 40 years ago.
Pick one, you can't have it both ways. Nevermind, don't bother.
I got rid of my subscription (DirectTV), but not to jump to streaming. I just don’t turn the darn thing on anymore.
Well Tex, you're free to pay to watch their endless commercials...Be my guest!
There is a sucker born ever minute!
You completely miss the point about “free”
No I didn't because you're wrong.
TV wasn't free 40 years ago.
Ya see Tex the advertisers paid big money to the broadcasters to run their commercials 40 years ago, just like they do today, however, the fat corps got really greedy, and decided to also make the sucker subscribers to pay to watch commercials after they told Americans, "Pay TV will be commercial free".
Of course you know what I'm talking about.
But lemmme make this real simple for ya Tex.
TV was free to the viewers, as the advertisers paid big money to the broadcasters to run their commercials 40 years ago, just like they do today, however, the fat corps got really greedy, and decided to also make the sucker subscribers to pay to watch commercials after they told Americans, "Pay TV will be commercial free"
I concur. Technology exists to allow consumers to pick and choose any single cable network, but that’s not in the plan. Telecoms know many many networks would go out of business so, voila, the bundle.
It will be one more at the end of this month.
IMHO, the worst part of buying into a TV service is that when the services first started, they were advertised as “commercial free TV”.
I only watch WKU football and basketball...most of all these games are on http://www.firstrowsports.eu/
If a WKU game isn’t on this, I hook up on WKUSports.com for audio or video. I get WKU baseball on this one too.
But you can generally find a live feed on any game—assuming it’s broadcast in the first place.
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