“Netflix, Apple TV, Google TV, Microsoft’s X-Box, and other broadband-based systems are already causing many customers, especially younger viewers, to drop cable,” Melloy reports. “‘Eventually just as mobile phones eroded the need for a land line, the mix of Internet TV choices will cause the cable subscribers to depart their cable providers,’ said Simon Baker of Baker Avenue Asset Management. The money manager is looking to buy companies that help speed up the delivery of content over broadband networks.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Cable is such a ripoff!
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I love disruptive technologies!
First!
That’s because cable TV is a fucking ripoff! $100 a month to watch 20 shitty channels? America is finally waking up and this is the alarm clock.
Remember casettes that were eaten by the tape player.
How about $400 landline phone bills.
Just like the above scenarios, one day we will try and remember why we paid $1200 or more per year for a worthless service!
I wonder if they’ll try to blame this on “piracy.”
¡Cacahuates!
second?
Finally, this will also lead to more competition.
the catv people originally promised no advertisements because you would be paying for the content, and people believed them!!
Never had cable.
Another vacuous drain.
I canceled Time-Warner Cable last week. I have my Mac Mini linked to my TV & with subscriptions to Hulu Plus ($7.99) and Netflix ($9.99) my monthly cost has gone from $80 to $18 with far more movies and with TV shows than cable ever offered. As soon as live sports events are available on the internet, cable is over.
It’s just evidence of households tightening their belts. It will spread. Cable is especially vulnerable, since it is optional and not a good substitute for food or heat.
@Tflint – How do you access the internet? IMHO, internet access is the only real selling point for the cable companies.
If Apple gets into the streaming business with that North Carolina data center, we may just find the bodies of the cable industry on the digital highway.
No DVR needed!
I’m going to have a party the day DirecTV goes out of business. Those people are thieves.
RIM’s next big idea: Team up with Comcast to deliver Flash over cable to the upcoming Play-for-sure-book.
@ Tflint: The live sports are available on the internet, some in legitimate spots (MLB at Bat) and others in not so legitimate spots (look for yourself), just not in HD.
But like lurker says, how do you access the internet, in not via cable?
Cable will be history soon. Way to many commercials and to much inane, stupid crap with recycled junk. The total inundation of commercials is what really turns me off to cable.
I’ve been using Netflix’s $9 monthly service (1 free month) since buying the new AppleTV and my wife & I love it. No commercials, watching movies and seasons of TV shows. Why can’t Apple do this with the media co.’s? Some of my favs, Firefly the movie and series, The Universe all 1 hour episodes commercial free, 2012, Legion they have a ton of good stuff. Wife likes Dexter series, Lost, Heroes. Come on Apple! I’d pay $25 a month easy for this service by itself, $35 for a little more.
Could also be that 1 out of 5 to 1 out of 10 people DON’T HAVE A JOB.
However, I to am changing my home media set up and hope to cut this huge monthly cable bill. Still want the high speed cable. The rest is optional and on line in many cases. Everyone has iPhones. Just connected a new Mac mini and a new TiVo box to the HDTVs. Will be streaming to my iPads soon and will reconsider the free satellite dish by end of year.
I too dropped my Comcast programing and only kept
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the cable modem. With Apple TV and Netflix, I’ve
got most of what I need except for sports. I guess,
for the big games on ESPN,VERSUS,FOX sports,
I’ll mosey down to my local tavern with its four 40″
TVs (Direct TV) and its choice of 50 domestic and
foreign beers. It’s a terrible sacrifice but somebody’s
got to do it.
They’ll make it up by jacking up the prices of their Internet services, since the cable companies are the same people who provide the Internet access.
I noticed that our Cale op Con-cast is upgrading basic service to all unencrypted QUAM with many previously encrypted cable HD channels going Clear QUAM.
What that means is my EyeTV 250+ can shift from analog to digital on all channels once the conversion is over. They are also boosting the speed of standard cable Internet.
Smells like fear when the always less service for more money Cable outfits go the other way.
MacBill:
“They’ll make it up by jacking up the prices of their Internet services, since the cable companies are the same people who provide the Internet access.”
Exactly! Once people start dropping the TV service, the cable companies will jack up their already insane prices to absurd levels.
It depends on several things – struggling economy, the amount of time web-surfing is taking out of our lives, and the access to broadband internet.
When true on-demand, hi-def, internet-accessible content is readily and instantly available to most people, that’s how cable companies will continue to monetize themselves. Since it’s along the same cable as many people access internet from, it will all be part of the same subscription fee. That won’t change.
Telephone companies are also introducing new fiber network connections for DSL, and are now including TV channel packages just like cable. The industry will evolve, but not really change much, with one caveat: Expect to pay higher costs for internet if you use it for media consumption. Whether via cable, satellite, or DSL, the providers are going to charge one way or another and still make their nickel.
Cable companies have thrived by giving you less and less for your money and covering it with advertising. That opportunity is ending for them. I am old enough to remember the original cable proposition: You will pay for your tv programs, and in return you will get more content and no advertising. Ha.
The iTunes proposition is that you get just what you want from a vast selection at a lower cost per item. This also benefits the content providers because people obtain more music, tv shows, and movies than they did before, because it is easier and more pleasurable.
Your average person only watches 13 channels.
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What the hell do you need 200+ channels for?
Until the sports issue is worked out by Apple, Hulu, etc., I’m sticking with Comcast. I can’t give up the luxury of being able to watch every single Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Eagles games each and every season. I would go into severe sweating, shaking, catatonic withdrawal.