Here Is Why You Should Cut The Cable And Broadcast TV Cord
For a long time cable television was the entertainment go-to for the majority of America. It was just something you had to have like a refrigerator or a shower. I would go to one of my Aunts houses and she didn’t have cable. It was strange. We sat there at a holiday and couldn’t watch anything, Maybe that’s why I hate Christmas?
Now, with the internet and its streaming capabilities, the reason to have cable is becoming more and more pointless. There are maybe 5 channels that have high quality content, but the other 1,000 channels are mostly garbage or syndicated shows you can watch on a streaming service. I have cable, but I only watch maybe a few channels live. I watched CNN because of the hurricanes, but I really watched the majority of the coverage on my laptop from their website. I had to have my ISP to watch it, but still.
There are more streaming services online than ever before. You got HBOGO, Netflix, Crackle, Hulu, Sling TV, YouTube Red, and more. I honestly watch more of that on my smartphone than I ever do with my television. I have a television in my room that is only hooked up to my PS4. I watch Netflix and other streaming services through that. The only real reason I have cable is for sports. But now, it seems sports are making their way to streaming services in the near future.
Not only is cable dying, but so is network television. Remember when shows like Friends got numbers like 30 million live viewers? Now shows getting 7 million viewers are considered a success. The biggest show on television, Game of Thrones, pulls in those types of numbers, but that’s only because it’s a global phenomenon. It’s the only reason I have HBO. It was recently put out there that the show was pirated over a billion times this season. So people aren’t even paying to watch it.
Cable television on network broadcasts are dying, but cable seems to be charging way too much. I currently pay around $220 a month for cable. yeah. I have HBO and Starz, but that’s it. The ISP (Internet Service Provider) Xfinity has to be one of the slowest internet providers out there. Literally, as I wrote that, the top of WordPress “lost connection” before coming back. I can’t tell you how many times the internet goes so slow or cuts off while writing an article. Then, when I try to get back on, it will error, and I will lose hours of work because it disappeared completely or from where my last save was.
I recall hearing my Dad complain about how “cable was supposed to be commercial free when it first came out, but now I can’t even remember what I’m watching because there are so many ads. He’s not wrong. If you want to test the theory, download an episode of a 1 hour show from 2007 and one from 2017. Commercials cut out of the 2007 show will give you around 44 minutes of show, which means you’ll have about 16 minutes of ads. A 2017 show will be around 38 minutes with 22 minutes worth of ads. That isn’t even including the promotion of products within the show. Some of it is so blatant that, well, take a look at this clip from Bones.
That is real. It literally was a car ad within a show. What’s even worse was when the show Chuck was on the verge of cancellation. They had to make a deal to feature Subway into just about every episode in later seasons. This isn’t in English, but it’s worth watching because wow it’s bad.
As I stated above, I pay $220 a month for cable. Some pay even more for a service where they may watch maybe only a handful of channels. It would be convenient if a customer could pick only a few channels that they actually watch and only pay for them, but that would mean cheaper prices. We know that will never happen.
More and more people are cutting the cord because sitting on the couch and watching television while paying so much is becoming a thing of the past. Have you noticed your cable company introducing weird new services that they haven’t before? I have Xfinity, but now they want me to get my cellphone service through them with Xfinity Mobile? Maybe even get a security system for my house through their new security service? These are the signs of desperation. Cable companies know that the old way of doing things is starting to die out.
As the cord cutting starts to increase, more and more pay streaming services will become available. Cable TV will soon die out because of streaming online. More and more streaming sites will be created. Property rights holders of content will start removing their stuff — Disney removing from Netflix — to start their own streaming site. Soon there was be hundreds of streaming sites that charge $10 each to watch their content. It will just be cable TV on the internet I think I’m just going to read a book.
Follow Jeff Sorensen on TWITTER
Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com