axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC | Price goes up, demand will drop At some point, people will not sign up if the cost is too high. It happens with illegal drugs, surely it can happen with cable TV as well.
I haven't had cable TV since college, and that was because Comcast built a stadium in exchange for forcing the school to include cable in the price of housing.
I was off cable before internet video existed, to save money. I think it works the other way, once you stop paying for cable, then you seek out internet video. If I could afford cable, and liked TV enough, I wouldn't switch to internet video to save a buck.
I think the illegal music downloading is similar, the people who couldn't afford CDs turned to the internet for music, people who can still afford CDs will buy them... but since they can't afford every CD they download the ones they don't have. |
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| Yup We recently reduced our package from Directv to a lower package and will be saving roughly 30 dollars from now on because of it.
I wanted to switch over to cable but when I saw the prices I instantly ran away and decided to stay with directv. When I look at the channels my family watches out of the 195 channels we only watch roughly about 10-15 of them, if directv did offer a la carte service at say a dollar a channel I would pay for the channels I want to watch without the extra fluff. The rest can be left to a internet video device service for movies and local channels for news and local programming. |
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 LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5
1 edit | reply to axus
Re: Price goes up, demand will drop said by axus:At some point, people will not sign up if the cost is too high. It is called supply & demand. If prices keep going up, then customers will downgrade to lower tier pkgs(which I did) or drop it altogether. Then the cable companies will end the constant price increases and they will stop paying Hollywood's outrageous price demands for content. |
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4 edits | Then the cable companies will end the constant price increases and they will stop paying Hollywood's outrageous price demands for content. I'll believe that when I see it. Broadcasters want their money, and cable TV operators won't eat those costs, and both face the pressure of expected quarterly revenue bumps. It's a dance of death that opens the door wide for a disruptive, low-cost, a la carte Internet video alternative.
The only thing stopping Internet video right now is the broadcasters' restrictive licensing, and if cable operators stop being willing to shell out the cash, guess where the broadcasters turn instead? The very Internet video services they've been constricting for fear of cannibalizing revenue they'd now be losing...
It's all set up like a bunch of bowling pins over the next ten years. I bet cable execs see it but respond late in the game by finally lowering prices or offering a la carte or much smaller channel bundles. |
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| Bi-annually? Bi-annually is every 2 years.
Semi-annually is every 6 months.
Which did you mean?
Regardless, I got fed up with Cablevision's overpriced TV service and disconnected a year ago today. I've saved almost $700.
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zed2608Premium
join:2007-09-30
Cleveland, TN
kudos:1 Reviews:
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| said by Bobcat79:Bi-annually is every 2 years. Semi-annually is every 6 months. Which did you mean? Regardless, I got fed up with Cablevision's overpriced TV service and disconnected a year ago today. I've saved almost $700. »www.thefreedictionary.com/biannually
bi-annualy is 2 times per year |
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OUCH! |
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| reply to zed2608
Which is why you shouldn't trust a free dictionary.
quote:
The art show is a biannual event that won't happen again for two more years.
»www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biannual |
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zed2608Premium
join:2007-09-30
Cleveland, TN
kudos:1 Reviews:
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2 edits | Definition of BIANNUAL
1
: occurring twice a year
acording to your own dictinary link
looks like it could mean once every 2 years or 2 times per year |
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| Right, it's ambiguous. So if Karl wants us to know what he means, he should have used the word semi-annually. That makes the meaning clear.
Unless he really meant every 2 years. I have no way of knowing!
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| reply to Linklist
Re: Price goes up, demand will drop said by Linklist:said by axus:At some point, people will not sign up if the cost is too high. It is called supply & demand. How is it just a market condition (supply and demand) when cable uses public easements and rights of way to reach its customers? In a true "market" they would have had to negotiate with every customer along the path to purchase the right to use their property to reach other customers (and neighborhoods).
Those easements and rights of way are finite resources. It's not like anyone can just jump in and use those resources to provide a service to their neighbors.
I remember when cable companies came into existence, and were discussed as a "franchise." They were knowingly given monopolies to cities, with conditions that they use their positions for the public good (such as public "access" channels).
Today, it seems like they're just accepted as a naturally existing entity. Beyond questioning whether they serve the public interest. Beyond questioning whether they are competitive (in the absence of competition). |
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 DragasoniWe're All Mad HerePremium
join:2001-12-14
Palm Bay, FL | Waste of money... If my wife and roomate didn't watch TV, I'd cut the cord. Other then a baseball game here and there, I haven't watched TV in years and have no interest in it whatsoever. It kills me to pay $85 a month for mindless crap you can get online for free, but at least our roomate pays half of the bill.
I don't even need the cable for interne because 2 of my neighbors have wide open access points. A simple knock on their door, and I know they'd be willing to share for a small fee.
-Dragasoni-
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»www.youtube.com/user/dragasoni |
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DragasoniWe're All Mad HerePremium
join:2001-12-14
Palm Bay, FL | reply to Bobcat79
Re: Bi-annually? Do we have to clog up the thread with useless arguements?
-Dragasoni-
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»www.youtube.com/user/dragasoni |
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| I'm just trying to figure out if Karl meant every 6 months or every 2 years. |
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 en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | reply to zed2608
Wiki:
Adverb
biannually (not comparable)
1. Twice per year.
[edit] Usage notes
* Some authorities report confusion between biennially and biannually. Using "semiannually" may reduce the risk of confusion.
[edit] Synonyms
* semiannually
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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3 edits | reply to Bobcat79
I think you knew I meant twice a year (since that's what most cable operators do and that's the definition of the word (semiannual is a synonym), but just chose to be contentious. |
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 newviewEx .. Ex .. ExactlyPremium
join:2001-10-01
Parsonsburg, MD
kudos:1 | Natural Evolution I dropped Comcast cableTV for DirecTV back in 2003 because of a price / value comparison. I'm currently re-purposing an unused computer as a streaming media box to take advantage of Netflix and internet video and will probably substantially reduce my DirecTV subscription as a result.
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| reply to amigo_boy
Re: Price goes up, demand will drop My city has a non exclusive franchise agreement with Comcast. But we don't have any other takers trying to offer cable or compete with Comcast. Easements and right of ways aren't barriers to entry if the franchise agreement is setup right. |
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| said by wkm001:Easements and right of ways aren't barriers to entry if the franchise agreement is setup right. I disagree. I'm pretty sure that if I dig up the street to run a cable to my neighbor's house, I'm going to be in trouble.
There is tremendous overhead to gaining access to easements and public rights of way. Worse, the more they're used, the less they can be used without risk of damaging what's already there.
I.e., when Cox laid its cable here a few decades ago, they had the advantage of not having to negotiate around competitors lines. It's much less lucrative now that Cox's cable is in the ground. |
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| evolving consumer habits the couch potato syndrome that used to happen during the first two waves of (moving) video in the home (pre-digital, for the most part) had millions of consumers addicted to the product. consumers are in the process of evolving with the multitude of choices for delivery of content which competes for consumer's attention. cable-tv's take it or leave it blocks of channels are getting attacked on all sides from free alternatives. the internet as the medium of transport and wired/wireless utilization will put cable-tv as we know it onto the ash heaps of history.
pricing, value and competition are more important every day as a tech savvy consumer says I've got choices.. to the providers.. some of you also say, I don't watch all that much tv, so I can "DOWNLOAD" the parts I want and NOT SUBSCRIBE to the rest. one can successfully argue that you don't need to be as technology literate as you did even 5 years ago and the broadband access is around millions more consumers. along comes google tv, apple tv ver 3.0, and other alternatives which now STREAM content via ethernet, wifi or other wireless tech. competition for the old set-top $$ RENTAL $$ boxes are being challenged by the internet. If a tv experience can happen from the internet for PENNIES instead of $$ HUNDREDS $$ of dollars, the cable-tv industry is due for a course correction of it's business model.
IMO, the cable-tv industry is losing consumers under 25 and may never get them back. a generation which feels entitled to virtually free entertainment. |
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