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Author Topic: Netflix Streaming has made me cancel cable  (Read 6775 times)
Rev. Powell
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« on: June 03, 2010, 08:26:37 PM »

I finally took the plunge and cancelled cable TV.  Since I can stream TV shows to my television thanks to my Netflix enabled Blu-ray player (which otherwise sucks), I find I have little need to pay $50/month for the service.

I'll be watching the following TV series on Netflix instead of on cable:

Red Dwarf
Fawlty Towers
The Office (British)
The Office (American)
News Radio
Dilbert
Arrested Development
My Name Is Earl
King of the Hill
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Reno 911!
South Park
Strangers with Candy
Black Adder
Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theater

The only thing I'm going to miss is cable news, and sports.  I'll probably reinstate cable when football and basketball seasons roll around.  But for the summer I'll find something to do with the $15o I'll be saving on cable.

My point is not to specifically shill for Netflix, but to point out the landscape is changing... there's no reason we have to be tied to the traditional cable TV model.  Cable needs to adapt. 
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feiyen
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« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2010, 02:29:07 AM »

pssh I wish we had more competitors here cable prices are insane ....good thing I have satellite  Twirling thought it's true I am finding my self less and less watching tv when I have netflix plus hulu. Even consoles systems are integrating tv and web...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20006523-1.html

will tv be obsolete? and how soon?
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Jack
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« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2010, 06:41:34 AM »

I got Netflix streaming on my PS3 a couple weeks ago and I'm absolutely loving it.  Tons of direct-to-video horror movies I can watch every evening.  And TV shows too, I just watched some Dark Shadows last night.  And you get one DVD at a time as well, all for $9 a month.  My DVD queue is already up to 50+ titles, I just put everything from my Amazon wishlist on there. 

I'd get rid of cable TV in heartbeat if it weren't for the wife and kids.  I suppose I'll start watching TV again when football season starts, but even before I got Netflix, I wasn't watching much more than 10 minutes of TV a week.  Turn it on, watch commercials until you forget what the hell show you even tuned in to see, turn it off. 
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Rev. Powell
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« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2010, 11:11:33 AM »

pssh I wish we had more competitors here cable prices are insane ....good thing I have satellite  Twirling thought it's true I am finding my self less and less watching tv when I have netflix plus hulu. Even consoles systems are integrating tv and web...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20006523-1.html

will tv be obsolete? and how soon?


I've never tried Hulu, but the interesting thing about them is they have current news programs, whereas Netflix only has older back catalog stuff that's already released on DVD.  But, they also have commercials, which makes them less attractive.

TV as we know it will probably be obsolete someday; I'm not sure if it will be in our lifetimes.  The on-demand subscription model makes more sense than the sit-and-wait-for-the-program-I-want-to-watch-and-wade-through-commercials model. 

Plus, by streaming content there's no need to run physical wires and therefore no need for granting cable monopolies; the free market can drive costs down for the viewer and offer a greater variety of services.

Like I say, the only thing I'll miss is real-time sports and news coverage.  That's all TV's good for right now.  I'm sure that streaming services can eventually offer this stuff, then it's bye-bye cable and broadcast television.   
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Mr. DS
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« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2010, 11:42:20 AM »

Totally with you on this thread Rev.   Thumbup   I watch tons of stuff through streaming.  I just wrapped up Arrested Development which I loved.  Chapelle's Show just got picked up recently which I've been enjoying as well.  When you get a chance check out Spartacus Blood and Sand...simply an awesome show.
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dean
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« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2010, 12:05:37 PM »


It's funny to think about the ramifications of Rev's statement on the industry.  If we had a pay as you go system where you stream/download shows [which is where I see it going] but WITHOUT ads, I wonder what that will mean for revenue and therefore the budget to create content... 

Yes I have no doubt the studios will find a way to create content that gouges every living cent out of us, but I'm interested in seeing what format that will take, as I think they're still trying to fine tune that now.


I was also going to say that it could open up the TV market to more user based content as price of distribution goes down, but then I realised Youtube already does that in a way...



I still say, eventually we'll all have a computer chip implanted in our brains that beams images direct to us...
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« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2010, 04:42:26 PM »

When I was very young, we had 7 channels that had good enough audio and video quality to watch them frequently.

4 VHF channels:

* Channel 2 (a PBS channel)
* Channels 4, 5, and 7 (network affiliates)

And 3 UHF channels:

* Channel 44 (a PBS channel with pretty much the same programs as channel 2)
* Channels 56 and 38 (independent Boston channels with no network affiliations)

After awhile they added:

* Channel 68 (a terrible, short-lived UHF channel that showed VERY old, VERY obscure movies with awful audio and video quality, but they did show some classic TV shows like PETER GUNN that were okay)

* Channel 25 (which was a decent channel and provided some competition for channels 38 and 56)

Somehow (and I have no idea how this could possibly be true) I could find something interesting to watch about 90% of the time.

Now, I have 12 bazillion cable channels and 3,500 movies on DVD and sometimes I can't find anything I want to watch.  There's a point in here somewhere, but I'm not sure what the hell it is.


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« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2010, 04:54:23 PM »

DarksSider: I actually put "Spartacus" into my queue today, before reading your post.  And, it looks to me like Comedy Central may have just struck a deal with Netflix, as a lot of their original programming just showed up.

dean: I actually worry about the effect on quality the loss of ad revenue could potentially have.  One theory is that less ad revenue (from TIVO and other technologies allowing the viewer to bypass commercials) has already resulted in lower quality television, that is, the move away from scripted shows with expensive actors to cheap reality programming.  I don't know where entertainment will go, but from the consumer perspective, cheaper is better.  The industry will have to find ways to adapt to low priced competition while still putting out stuff that's worth watching.

Burgo: It is amazing that with all that cable programming, there's still so little worth watching.  And there are tons of shows and movies I'd like to see that aren't available anywhere on cable.  The problem may be that even the "niche" cable stations are aiming at the same undiscriminating, lowest-common-denominator audience.   
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joejoeherron
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« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2010, 05:16:41 AM »

When I was very young, we had 7 channels that had good enough audio and video quality to watch them frequently.

4 VHF channels:

* Channel 2 (a PBS channel)
* Channels 4, 5, and 7 (network affiliates)

And 3 UHF channels:

* Channel 44 (a PBS channel with pretty much the same programs as channel 2)
* Channels 56 and 38 (independent Boston channels with no network affiliations)

After awhile they added:

* Channel 68 (a terrible, short-lived UHF channel that showed VERY old, VERY obscure movies with awful audio and video quality, but they did show some classic TV shows like PETER GUNN that were okay)

* Channel 25 (which was a decent channel and provided some competition for channels 38 and 56)

Somehow (and I have no idea how this could possibly be true) I could find something interesting to watch about 90% of the time.

Now, I have 12 bazillion cable channels and 3,500 movies on DVD and sometimes I can't find anything I want to watch.  There's a point in here somewhere, but I'm not sure what the hell it is.




I understand your point, and I agree.
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Jim H
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« Reply #9 on: June 08, 2010, 02:28:07 AM »

I feel kind of bad, because I'm not really willing to pay for the extended cable services due to netflix (Premium channels), even though I like the content a lot.  The only stuff I watch regularly on cable is stuff like the History Channel, Game Show Network, and the Daily Show. 

Perhaps the most interesting consequence of heavy consumer choice is we're going to have less and less uniting us culturally.  Shared national and global cultural events are going to get rarer and rarer as highly specific shows tailored to extremely narrow markets vie for attention.  At least, that's the way I suspect things will go.  That's certainly a trend cable started - think of how few truly national TV events there are now (the Superbowl and the Olympics are the only ones that really spring to mind anymore), in comparison to 20+ years ago.  Broad usage of the internet continues these trends as well, as this forum itself indicates.

It's interesting and sometimes sad that broader access to information can actually lead to greater cultural heterogeneousness.  Or whatever the opposite of homogeneous is. 
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Rev. Powell
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« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2010, 11:06:22 AM »



Perhaps the most interesting consequence of heavy consumer choice is we're going to have less and less uniting us culturally.  Shared national and global cultural events are going to get rarer and rarer as highly specific shows tailored to extremely narrow markets vie for attention.  At least, that's the way I suspect things will go.  That's certainly a trend cable started - think of how few truly national TV events there are now (the Superbowl and the Olympics are the only ones that really spring to mind anymore), in comparison to 20+ years ago.  Broad usage of the internet continues these trends as well, as this forum itself indicates.

It's interesting and sometimes sad that broader access to information can actually lead to greater cultural heterogeneousness.  Or whatever the opposite of homogeneous is. 

I won't miss being part of a culture that's united by a shared interest in Lady Gaga, "Gilligan's Island," Adam Sandler, "Survivor," or whatever the flavor of the month happens to be.  I'm already an outsider to pop monoculture---when people talk about the latest hit movies, TV series or music, I can rarely join in the discussion. I won't mind other people joining me.  Smile
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Jim H
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« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2010, 12:26:00 PM »



Perhaps the most interesting consequence of heavy consumer choice is we're going to have less and less uniting us culturally.  Shared national and global cultural events are going to get rarer and rarer as highly specific shows tailored to extremely narrow markets vie for attention.  At least, that's the way I suspect things will go.  That's certainly a trend cable started - think of how few truly national TV events there are now (the Superbowl and the Olympics are the only ones that really spring to mind anymore), in comparison to 20+ years ago.  Broad usage of the internet continues these trends as well, as this forum itself indicates.

It's interesting and sometimes sad that broader access to information can actually lead to greater cultural heterogeneousness.  Or whatever the opposite of homogeneous is. 

I won't miss being part of a culture that's united by a shared interest in Lady Gaga, "Gilligan's Island," Adam Sandler, "Survivor," or whatever the flavor of the month happens to be.  I'm already an outsider to pop monoculture---when people talk about the latest hit movies, TV series or music, I can rarely join in the discussion. I won't mind other people joining me.  Smile

It's not all bad.   BounceGiggle

But...  Getting a bit off-topic here, but splintering groups (more the internet here than cable) means there is going to be less and less consensus, and more and more people are going to be intellectually isolated - an exposure to a broad range of viewpoints is one of the most effective ways of countering ignorance and prejudice, and ironically the freedom of the internet allows people to find others sharing their exact viewpoint.  It's a worrisome thought, for me at least.  I don't think the world needs heavy doses of tribalism. 
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