A couple of years ago, I did the math and determined that, if I were to purchase the entire season of every show I watch each year on iTunes, the cost would run me around $1000 per year, and that even includes purchasing shows that are freely available on Hulu, or the various network’s websites. Meanwhile, I pay $1500 a year for the privilege of fast-forwarding through commercials, while if I’d simply bought each season on iTunes, I could do without the commercials, and I’d get to keep those seasons, as well.
Still, I justify the $1500 expense because of sports programming, kids’ programming, and because I don’t like waiting until the next day (or the next month) to see certain shows. For a lot of people, the tipping point is already arriving. Last year, thanks to services like Hulu and Netflix, more than 1 million people cut their cable subscriptions. Since 2008, 2.65 million people have cut the cord. Still fewer people are adding cable subscriptions (there were only 112,000 new cable subscribers last year).
What’s the cable industries plan to combat the losses? Raise the prices, of course. Cable prices are already increasing at around six percent each year. Today, the average cable bill is $86. By 2015, the average cable bill will be $123. By 2020, the average cable bill will be $200. That’s $2400 a year. For that amount of money, right now you could buy full seasons of around 60 shows (40 sitcoms, 20 dramas). Obviously, the cost of downloading a full season will increase over time, too, but even if, say, sitcoms ran $50 a piece and one-hour dramas ran $100 per season, you could still purchase 36 seasons of television a year.
Who watches 36 seasons of television per year? Why does anyone still pay for cable? Just imagine how much better our lives would be if we cut the cord? We’d be more selective about the individual shows we pay to watch, and we might get out of the house more to watch sports programming. That may sound inconvenient now, but when cable bills begin to rise toward $200, we may finally reach our tipping point.
(Source: Yahoo!)
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You must have a fancy calculator
READ BOOKS!!!
OR JUST WAIT UNTIL THE MOVIE COMES OUT AND WATCH IT ON VEETLE
35 foot aerial, babeeee. 6 local channels, two PBS’s and about a thousand angry neighbors!
Still waiting on Michael Bay’s War and Peace
Of course, once a critical mass of people cut the cord, the networks and production companies will be unable to pay for the original programming you want to watch. (Remember: you’re not just eliminating cable/dish revenue, you’re also eliminating ad revenue for all but the premium channels.) DVD/iTunes/Hulu is the frosting on the cake, but without the cake there is no frosting. Alternatively, DVD/iTunes/Hulu prices will increase exponentially and you’ll end up paying $500 for the next season of Justified, or $900 for the next season of Mad Men.
Art Vandelay just opened a can of whoop ass on this post.
This isn’t entirely true. Ad revenues are based on viewership. The “frosting” that comes from Hulu et al is mostly because not nearly as many people WATCH Hulu. If 90% of people who watch a show watch it on TV and 10% on Hulu, of course 90% of the revenues are going to go to the live broadcast. If the numbers are reversed, there’s no reason to think that advertisers wouldn’t switch where their money goes, without the end user really seeing much of a difference.
It gets more complicated with cable and how those revenues work, but certainly for broadcast there’s no reason anything should change. If anything, it’s surprising to me that advertisers aren’t MORE excited about Hulu than broadcast – you can’t fast forward Hulu ads, and you have much more precise information about your demographics and how / when they are watching.
Dear somebody with the power to do this: Make the sports equivalent of Hulu happen, please.
Sports is the one type of programming that people still watch live. It’s why it commands such huge TV contracts these days, because it’s the programming that is least likely to be recorded and have the commercials fast forwarded through. The future of sports programming that would be the death knell of cable is high quality, affordable live streaming, not something like Hulu.
There’s some on-demand streaming on the Xbox Live ESPN application, but it’s limited to out-of-market games- at this point, if there’s a Cubs game I really want to see, I do what Dustin suggests, I go to a bar and watch it. The beer costs more, but there’s at least people around to commiserate with.
NHL’s Center Ice (I watch it on a Roku) is pretty awesome, albeit pretty specific. I can watch out of market games live. But the in-market games come on an hour or two after they’re over. Plus, all the archived games have the commercials and intermissions cut out. All in HD, too. It’s the same price you’d pay for the package on cable or satellite. It’s too bad nobody wants to watch the NHL. They’ve put a lot of work into it.
How much does a season of Property Brothers cost?
Yard Crashers only costs a dollar now that they dicked over Ahmed Hassan.
What happened to Ahmad…???
Word is they taped a few episodes with him that will air this season but they’re showing the new episodes with the new host now so we don’t bitch too much. Apparently Ahmed wanted more money to do bigger projects or something like that and DIY said no, so for now he’ll still be listed as the “Yard Crashers Classics Host” until they work out a new deal. If they do at all.
Damnit!!!
Well I hope it was his option…but it sounds like it was DIY …….
[hookedonhouses.net]
This is one of the few reality shows I watch and DVR……
…well besides the “Busty Cops” show on Cinemax
How would you get paid promotional infomercials…?
My Fios bundle is about $210.00/ month with about $40 for internet and about $50.00 for landline……(includes taxes) so $120/month……..and I STILL flip channels for half the night…..
EVERYTHING I watch is now on DVR or On-Demand…..and I love how “they” disable fast-forwarding on some of the on-demands..
Sports are the only thing keeping me from cutting the cord. Need to make the change soon
Did WG just blackout while the rest of Uproxx worked? Weird.
Good idea for a future post (and very lifehacker.com-ish) “How to effectively cut the cable chord and watch shows using your computer hooked up to your tv.” I know it can be done, i just have no clue where to begin. Nothing drives me more insane-o than paying $120 a month for a fkn cable bill. Make it happen!
Roku (80 bucks) + Hulu Plus Subscription (7.99 / month) will get you a LOT of your normal TV.
Through Amazon you can purchase most of what isn’t available on Hulu (I do this for FX and the AMC shows), typically 1.99/episode (ridiculous, but you “own” them not “rent” them).
That does leave holes though, and that’s where things get tricky.
If you want premium stuff, or you download TV through other means, you’re kinda SOL without an actual computer, or a device (at this point, a BluRay player) that will support something called “DLNA”, which essentially lets you stream media from another computer. But if you don’t know where to start with a computer that may be beyond your scope (no offense).
pretty sure lifehacker has done that post verbatim. maybe check there first.
Thanks Bobman!! Never heard of Roku. I’m gonna check it out!
I’ll check lifehacker, too, Ralph. Thanks for the responses guys!
My blu-ray player hooks directly to my router. Everything controlled by one remote (Viera) for TV, and I use Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime (lots free if you pay $80/yr) and Vudu. Its also easy to switch to aerial for sports on broadcast TV, and if I want to watch something on ESPN I just have to get social and go buy a pint at a sportsbar
+20 for Roku. I love mine. The only think lacking for me is Food Network, but those yahoos don’t stream anywhere.
You can get MLBTV, NHL Center Ice and the NBA one on it (as well as other places.) It has MLS, UFC and a cricket chanel. Pip pip.
I splice the shit out of my neighbors’ cable
I wanted to go back and see episodes of Community that I hadn’t seen. Turns out they were once on Netflix but not anymore, now they’re on Hulu. So now I’ve got to decide between Netflix, which has an increasing number of tv series, a decreasing number of movies, and someday will be airing new episodes of Arrested Development, or Hulu, which has literally nothing I want to watch except for Community.
Hulu+ is eight bucks a month. I think Community is worth it. Subscribe to both.
I finally said “enough” when my bill for internet, 2 DVR’s, and Showtime (love me some Nurse Jackie) hit $196. I used this method:
1) Call the evil Hindi bastards at Comcast.
2) Select the option for “to cancel your service.”
3) Bitch at Sanjay–wait, I mean “Steve”–about how your bill is too high, and you really don’t feel like going to the trouble to switch, but maybe you’ll have to.
4) Wait on hold for 15 minutes while “Steve” gets his manager, “Joe” on the phone. Repeat story to “Joe.”
5) Allow “Joe” to lower your bill by 1/3.
6) Repeat in 6 months, undoubtedly.
I will definitely use this…my bill is around the $230 mark and its cobblers, I really only watch 1 sports channel (FSC) and 3-4 premium channels (SHO, HBO, etc). My kids are already starting to leave the nest so I don’t need the cost, I’m curious to see if Bill from customer service (Bagirathby, to his close friends) will hook me up with something similar
Informative AND xenophobic! Huzzah!
Indeed. But to be fair, it’s Comcast and the Idiot Son running it who are evil. “Sanjay” and “Joe” are just pawns in game of life.
The cord will never be cut on a large scale for one easy reason that I count being mentioned only twice. Sports. That’s the ballgame. So long as cable or dish remains the sole source of all sports not a single person I know would give up cable.
Never is a long time. Sports follow where the revenue stream goes. Eventually the NFL will be the only thing on DirecTV and they’ll surely be able to get more lucrative deals elsewhere. My guess is we’ll see a big shift change when ever the current big contracts run out for the major sports broadcast rights.
Uverse 450 with everything plus an extra 5 a month for the HD “premium tier” but totally worth it for Red Zone alone, plus a 12 Mb Internet connection comes out to 206 and change this month. 50 for Internet and 150 for the Tv. But Tv I ‘ll never quit you!
Here in Chicago, I’m paying over $200 for the minimum HD package and the cheapest internet. It’s Comcastic – and makes my butt hurt.
Since the cable companies own internet streams, I can’t imagine they’ll let their viewership sag so much without raising the price of internet.
I cut the cord months ago. Best decision ever. I use streaming sites like Hulu plus for most of my faves & whatever else I can’t find I’ll buy on the appletv or **cough**”download”**cough*.