Seems people are dropping streaming services, as the prices escalate, tho not at the rate people are dropping conventional cable.
…but TPTB don’t want everyone going back to an antenna. The cell phone companies what that spectrum.
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You can stream Samsung TV for free and if you have a service that has ads why would you pay for it?
Andy
Streaming is here to stay. However, there are too many streaming services, producing more content (and good content) than any normal person can watch. As prices increase, it makes more and more sense to cancel the services you aren’t currently using much, and then sign up again later when they have new content you want. I’m not sure how many times I’ve signed up and later canceled Max* and Hulu over the years.
I predict the industry will be forced to consolidate, with each service charging higher prices.
*My Max subscription expires on the 15th. I’m in a race to binge watch Game of Thrones again before time expires. It is great the second time! I’m picking up tons of stuff I missed the first go around.
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I know. I have a Samsung TV. The downside is I have a Samsung TV…repairman due tomorrow. (the 10 year old Toshiba the Samsung was bought to replace is more reliable than the new Samsung.) Don’t know if the app is available for other brand sets, but then, with other brands, you can probably used Pluto.
Pay for a service that is full of ads? People have been paying for cable TV that is full of ads for decades.
Steve
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True but now you can get it free. I think Roku has a free tv service also. I couldn’t find an App for the Samsung tv, it seems they just have it with their own tv’s. I have a Samsung and it has worked flawlessly so far but I can’t say as much for the Fridge.
Andy
Samsung weirdness.
That sounds like a USB hub that is confused. Does the DVD plug directly into the tv?
Not a USB hub but a HDMI hub I mean.
Andy
Yup. DVD player plugged directly into the a/v inputs on the set. Antenna cable plugged directly into the set. No external tuner or cable box, or sat box.
Steve
Ok that is weird. Directly into the av inputs I wouldn’t think you would have a problem. I have all my stuff plugged directly into a receiver that has an eight position hdmi hub and then from the receiver directly into the hdmi port on the tv. No problems yet.
Andy
Weird, and intermittent. It messes up about once a week. The only cure for three of the four sound failure modes, when the sound fails the moment I turn it on, feeding from the antenna, is to unplug the thing and wait a minute. The thing has been acting up since three days after the end of Best Buy’s 15 day return window. My experience at RS with funky processors and software, said it was likely to be a recurring problem, so I kept a log of the failures, but I hoped the thing would die entirely, so a repairman could find the problem. It didn’t die after three months, so I set my camera on a tripod to capture video of it messing up.
Steve
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And people used to watch free tv with ads over the air and I sort of miss those days. Although I haven’t had TV for several years since comcast raised prices to a number I wasn’t willing to pay. I sort of miss the ads (at least some of the clever ones).
JimA
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I still do that. I refuse to pay the stupidly high monthly prices they all want–because I know the prices always go up. If advertisers do not consider their network/shows worth their advertising $$$, then there is no need for me–or others–to contradict them. My money, my choice.
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I guess I don’t understand this. TV advertisers spent more than ever on cable programming - more than on the networks, continuing a long standing trend. The total ad spend on linear TV is tens of billions of dollars in the US, nearly $200B worldwide. I’d say that’s something.
Of course there are some things “broad”cast can’t do as well as digital: precise targeting and tracking, but there’s still no better way to build a brand broadly, assuming you have the budget for it. Ramaswammi Conspiratomi spent heavily on broadcast in Iowa but nobody was buying his message. He’s pulled back, not because he’s a loser, but because His Excellence now thinks targeting voters more precisely is better. Also, he’s almost out of money, and it’s cheaper.
That’s kind of the argument in the nutshell.
The ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard includes DRM. Have you noticed the TV ads this past Christmas, and the Christmas before, for “Nextgen TV”? That is ATSC 3.0. TPTB say incorporating DRM is all about preventing retransmission of their signal, but it also enables pay over-the-air service, and tracking of viewers.
Thing is, when the standard switch was put in motion, the FCC decreed the rollout would be “voluntary and market driven”. The result has been a mess. Stations have started turning on DRM, and, surprise, surprise, some TVs and external tuners can’t decode it. A few months ago, a company made a patent claim on the technology, and sued LG. LG paid the judgement against it, for past production, but announced that they would stop installing ATSC 3.0 tuners in any of their sets. Originally, in 2017, the FCC said cut over from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0 would occur in the summer of 23. Then they bumped it back to 24. A few months ago, they bumped the cutover back to 2027.
Another thing that is happening is due to the cell phone industry progressively taking more and more spectrum away from broadcast TV. With broadcasts being made simultaneously in ATSC 1.0 and 3.0, TV spectrum is becoming very crowded in some markets, so some stations have started broadcasting the video in MPEG 4, rather than MPEG 2. Some older TVs don’t support MPEG 4, so viewers hear the audio, but do not receive the video.
Steve
If what you are selling is not what people want or are interested in, then it does not matter how much advertising is done. It won’t sell–at pretty much any price (even free).
OK, I get that, but that’s not what you said, which was:
If advertisers do not consider their network/shows worth their advertising $$$
Clearly advertisers DO think the networks and shows are worth their advertising dollars. That’s why the total ad dollar volume continues to go up. What am I missing?
There are two types of streaming:
A. TV
B. Cell phone.
I use my TV to watch, not a cell phone. I pretty much do not stream anything unless there is no choice. In which case, I may ignore it.
So the ad $$ spent on streaming services will never be seen by me or millions of others who also do not stream video “en masse”. Several TV shows went from TV to streaming because they chose to do so. I now know which creators’ shows to be leery of–because they do not reward their followers with more good shows. They charge them more and more as they move between the various services. I got tired of getting interested in series that “went elsewhere”, so it gets harder to become interested in new any new show that might do that. Several series have been cancelled because the network(s) didn’t like them or the shows got moved so often, the viewers could no longer follow them.