ESPN Accounts For More Than $6 Of Your Cable Bill; Could Soon Top $8

[freebrickproductions]

When I go out on my own, I'll get a TV but have it hooked up to an antenna, because I'd only need a TV for getting local stations.

[Laura]

I wonder if it would be profitable to offer a $10/month ESPN subscription to people who don't have cable. It would operate like WWE Network and MLB.tv.

I imagine it would give ESPN negotiating leverage with the carriers.

Yes, we would pay for this. ESPN and MASN (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network) were seriously the only things we watched when we had basic cable...until Crapcast removed all of the sports channels off of basic cable! At that point, we weren't going to give into their game of upgrading to a sports package - we cancelled cable entirely to only have internet (and lowered the speed on that as well since we weren't getting the speeds we were paying for anyway).

Brace yourselves, though: the companies that provide us with internet are the same companies that provide us with cable TV. They really would like it if everyone continued purchasing both and absent regulation preventing it, you know they are going to do whatever they can to make it difficult for us to stream stuff online.

Yep. I love how everyone is like "I don't watch TV" but then spend several hours a day online for leisure. It's a similar (although more interactive) hobby brought to you by the same company as TV.

[The Nature Boy]

If I had to pay for cable, I wouldn't do it. I've always lived places where cable was included in the rent so it's never been an issue for me.

I can pay $15/month for Hulu Plus and keep up with current TV shows. It's a bargain compared to cable TV prices.

[formulanone]

Yep. I love how everyone is like "I don't watch TV" but then spend several hours a day online for leisure. It's a similar (although more interactive) hobby brought to you by the same company as TV.

...I get workplaces, hotels, and free Wi-Fi to cover most of that habit!

[Duke87]

Meh. The networks and providers can flail about all the want, but the reality is, the writing is on the wall: cable TV is gradually going the way of the dodo. It is obsolete thanks to the ability to stream content via the internet.

1q14: Time Warner profit: $479 million
2q14: Comcast posted revenue of almost $2 Billion.

BTW...Comcast is set to build it's 2nd Skyscraper on Philly, which will be the tallest building between NYC & Chicago at 1,121 feet.

This Dodo bird ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

Soon, no. But it's already starting to slowly happen. Households that are without cable TV voluntarily (as in, can afford it, but choose not to) are still a small minority but unlike 10-15 years ago they aren't unheard of.

As for the Telco companies, they also do a lot of business selling people internet and nowadays also sell landline phone service to a lot of people... although that's becoming obsolete as well, at least for residential customers.

I do find it amusing how occasionally I get Time Warner offering to cut me a deal if I "switch" my TV and phone service. Very presumptuous of them, assuming I must be buying those services from someone else.

[ZLoth]

What is annoying is that for a lot of people, the only access to high-speed Internet is through their cable company. Guess what the cable company is doing? Implementing caps on how much data you can use in a month. Why? It less to do with the network management, and more to do with protecting their core product (cable television) from the competition (Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix).

As I said earlier in the thread, as part of the rental agreement, I have to pay for DirecTV. I was able to, earlier this year, downgrade to a lower-cost package. And, we didn't even have the premiums. But, the amount of compelling contest for me is low. RIght now, it's Mythbusters, FaceOff, and Doctor Who, but not at the price I'm paying.

[Billy F 1988]

The way I see it, I'm perfectly fine without cable or satellite. I can care less what they provide, how much the packages are, because this TV culture has gone far and away from what it used to be. What happened to it being so damn simple to just take in three frickin' channels with a twist of a switch that all the sudden we have to now navigate through stupidly confusing menus, unhelpful media guides, and craptacular services? Fuck all these high priced sports packages. The apps aren't any better, either. It's why I don't bother with it. My parents never needed it. So, there 'ya go. That's why I don't watch sports on TV. I never cared for it. I never will care for it for as far as I can throw it. I just don't care about it. I've mainly remained far away from the TV. I guess that's just how some of us Montana boys are. If I want to know who won or lost, it's either the newspaper or MSN (more likely the latter because most younger people go the computer's route, most older folks go the newspaper's route). Otherwise, i don't bother with it. Yes, I do listen to local sports radio (we have two in Missoula: "Griz Sports" KGRZ 1450 AM and 92.7 FM and 102.9 FM "ESPN Montana") but not all the time. It saves me the trouble of having to pay a certain fee for lame sports packages of which half of it wouldn't be used up. It's pointless. Why can't cable and satellite users be given a choice to choose which channels to pay for and which ones to not pay for? Why that is seems beyond me. Anyways, enough of my bitchin' about this mess.

[jeffandnicole]

Meh. The networks and providers can flail about all the want, but the reality is, the writing is on the wall: cable TV is gradually going the way of the dodo. It is obsolete thanks to the ability to stream content via the internet.

1q14: Time Warner profit: $479 million
2q14: Comcast posted revenue of almost $2 Billion.

BTW...Comcast is set to build it's 2nd Skyscraper on Philly, which will be the tallest building between NYC & Chicago at 1,121 feet.

This Dodo bird ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

Soon, no. But it's already starting to slowly happen. Households that are without cable TV voluntarily (as in, can afford it, but choose not to) are still a small minority but unlike 10-15 years ago they aren't unheard of.

I'd suggest reading their investor reports.  Many cable companies have seen their quarterly numbers for those returning their cable boxes have actually gone down from figures reported several years ago.

[NWI_Irish96]

If you want to watch live sporting events, you need cable/satellite.  If you don't want to watch sporting events and can live with seeing anything else you watch a day or so after it airs, you can get by on some combination of Netflix, Hulu+ and Amazon Prime for far, far less than cable/satellite.

Cable/satellite A la carte is never going to happen unless it is forced to happen by law.  The companies who own the five channels you do watch also own the 295 that you don't watch, and those companies aren't going to choose to reduce their profits by providing ways for you to just buy 1-2 of their channels instead of all of them.

[jeffandnicole]

If you want to watch live sporting events, you need cable/satellite.  If you don't want to watch sporting events and can live with seeing anything else you watch a day or so after it airs, you can get by on some combination of Netflix, Hulu+ and Amazon Prime for far, far less than cable/satellite.

Cable/satellite A la carte is never going to happen unless it is forced to happen by law.  The companies who own the five channels you do watch also own the 295 that you don't watch, and those companies aren't going to choose to reduce their profits by providing ways for you to just buy 1-2 of their channels instead of all of them.

And people are going to be sorely upset as to the prices when/if they do switch to a la carte.  Just like when you get a half-portion of anything in a restaurant, the cheapest part of that meal is the food. Much of what you're paying for is for advertising, rent, lease, payroll, HVAC, repairs, supplies, transportation, etc, etc, etc.  The food? Pennies, compared to all the other fixed costs.

Cable's no different.  There's a lot of infrastructure and technology and advertising you're paying for in that monthly cost.

[formulanone]

There's a lot of infrastructure and technology and advertising you're paying for in that monthly cost.

Advertising: deceptive practices which bait you for the first year, and don't tell you how much it will be jacked up towards in the future.

Infrastructure: the call center in India which doesn't do squat for you.

Technology: maximizing advertising content, and saving up for the next big technology change which they'll backpedal through forced legislation, yet ferret away the cash for thirty years until the competition is ready to come forth.

Don't forget the costs of lobbyists, since there's no Lobby Tax added onto the bill, it has to come form somewhere.

[jeffandnicole]

There's a lot of infrastructure and technology and advertising you're paying for in that monthly cost.

Advertising: deceptive practices which bait you for the first year, and don't tell you how much it will be jacked up towards in the future.

Infrastructure: the call center in India which doesn't do squat for you.

Technology: maximizing advertising content, and saving up for the next big technology change which they'll backpedal through forced legislation, yet ferret away the cash for thirty years until the competition is ready to come forth.

Don't forget the costs of lobbyists, since there's no Lobby Tax added onto the bill, it has to come form somewhere.

You can add in the 2nd Philly tower, which is estimated to cost just under $1 Billion.  The unions will do their part to increase that as high as possible.

[vdeane]

I remember the days when you didn't need a cable box or sports packages etc.  For the standard rate you got about 50-60 channels that included a little of everything and you could even use your TV's built-in tuner!  Also, everyone had at most two remotes* (one for the TV, one for the VCR) instead of a dozen.

*I do, in fact, have only two remotes at my apartment (TV/Blu-Ray) if you don't include the wireless keyboard/trackpad for my Chromebook (which is hooked up to the TV with a HDMI cable when I'm not traveling).

[Duke87]

Soon, no. But it's already starting to slowly happen. Households that are without cable TV voluntarily (as in, can afford it, but choose not to) are still a small minority but unlike 10-15 years ago they aren't unheard of.

I'd suggest reading their investor reports.  Many cable companies have seen their quarterly numbers for those returning their cable boxes have actually gone down from figures reported several years ago.

So what? The economy has improved. That just means you have fewer people ditching it because they can't afford it, it says nothing about the numbers of people who are without cable because they don't want it.