{"id":1393,"date":"2015-01-31T09:58:33","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T16:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2015-01-31T09:58:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-31T16:58:33","slug":"cord-cutters-gaining-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/cord-cutters-gaining-options\/","title":{"rendered":"Cord Cutters Gaining Options"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"apple-tv-stream\"<\/a>The cable and satellite TV industry is beginning to face\u00a0the inevitable. With broadband internet widely available on multiple screens, TV viewing options are morphing from the traditional fixed time and space (appointment TV in your living room) to flexible viewing (anytime, anywhere). Having resisted a la cart<\/em> pricing for many years, cable and satellite TV providers are\u00a0slowly coming to terms with the future…and hoping that they haven’t waiting too long to become viable players in a\u00a0future where content is packaged by the buyer–not the seller.<\/p>\n

In the past if you wanted access to broadcast and cable network programming you had, at most, only a few options. Depending on where you lived you could subscribe to cable (basic and tiered packages at prices ranging from $50-$100+ per month), satellite (pretty much the same deal but with a dish instead of a wire), or, in some markets, a\u00a0variation known\u00a0as wireless cable. Or, (see my earlier post<\/a>),\u00a0you might consider\u00a0OTA (Over The Air) broadcast TV for only the cost of an antenna!<\/p>\n

Most of these “packages” were available directly from the provider or bundled with your phone and\/or internet service. Telecom and cable providers rushed to create packages of video, voice and data (i.e. television, telephone and internet) and the result was often a monthly bill between $100-$200.<\/p>\n

But Millennials have been slow to buy in to these\u00a0marketing plans. Tech savvy and often financially squeezed, they have looked for other, (read, less expensive) alternatives. These alternatives still required internet access or a data plan on their phones…but landline phones and cable\/satellite TV were for older folks, e.g., their parents, and seemed redundant at best. With so many media options literally at their fingertips, younger consumers found that a mix of YouTube (seriously?, you need a link for YouTube<\/a>?), Hulu<\/a>, and Netflix<\/a> provides\u00a0a wealth of “television” programming without the sticker shock.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0problem is that, up until recently, live sports were seldom available online (unless you wanted to watch a choppy stream from\u00a0some former Soviet-bloc\u00a0website). But DiSH TV’s Sling TV<\/a>\u00a0(their slogan is Take Back TV<\/em>), will soon be offering\u00a0a basic package available for $20\/month that will\u00a0include ESPN, ESPN2, Disney Channel and CNN along with a handful of other popular networks. All you need is a smart TV or one of several streaming devices (e.g.,\u00a0Apple TV<\/a>, Roku<\/a>, Chromecast<\/a>) and you’re in business. Or just sign up and watch on your computer, tablet or phone. In either case there is no long-term contract to sign. However, if you need your DVR’s time-shifting capability, or your weekly fix of Mad Men<\/em> or\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Walking Dead<\/em>, Sling TV\u00a0may not be for you.\u00a0But others may find that\u00a0it’s time to Take Back TV<\/em>!<\/p>\n

One other significant development is that cable networks and program providers are beginning to offer stand-alone streaming packages. In addition to deals announced last year<\/a> by HBO, Showtime, and CBS, you can now subscribe to Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and Sesame Street via Google’s Chromecast service, and the necessary hardware will only set you back a one-time fee of $35.<\/p>\n

As you can see it will be fairly easy to cobble together some sort of TV programming package from a variety of sources to build a customized set of choices–and probably for a good bit less than you’d pay for a cable or satellite package.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cable and satellite TV industry is beginning to face\u00a0the inevitable. With broadband internet widely available on multiple screens, TV viewing options are morphing from the traditional fixed time and space (appointment TV in your living room) to flexible viewing (anytime, anywhere). Having resisted a la cart pricing for many years, cable and satellite TV … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Cord Cutters Gaining Options”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-industry","category-new-media","category-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}