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MWC Tex

Cord cutting accelerates

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talk...919471002/

“Cable and satellite TV providers lost about 1.1 million subscribers during the July to September period, the largest quarterly loss ever – and the first time the industry lost more than 1 million subscribers in a quarter.”
 
This won’t be good the RSNs.  Or for major sports networks like ESPN.  We shouldn’t sign on with a RSN next TV contract.
 
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I got rid of cable/satellite back in 2014 and I haven't really missed it. It was difficult to watch sports for the first year or so, but now there's so many streaming providers available, that I can watch pretty much everything I did before. Plus, I'm spending like $40/mo on YouTube TV for the same channels and abilities that cost me upwards of $200/mo with DirecTV.

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Direct TV and internet is free at my building, pretty sure that is becoming the norm for high rise condos in the major cities.

I still have youtubetv for $26 dollars a month that has all sports channels, but I believe it's only available in the NY/Chi/LA markets.

 

 

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People may be cutting the cord, they haven't stopped watching though. Many have just moved to a different platform.

I use PSVue.  Some use Prime, Hulu, Netflix,  or YouTube Red.  

So I still have my sports but pay a lot less than I did with cable.  I don't think sports stations are losing as much as we think, their advertising revenue stream is coming in from a different route is all.

If anything it is jobs lost for those who are employed by cable and satellite providers.

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5 minutes ago, dshawfan said:

Been contemplating cutting the cord for awhile now. Any advice for a newbie in regard to alternate TV packages?

All of the streaming services give you a free trial (usually a week)  I recommend trying several services to see which one you like best.  When I did it I made a list of shows / networks I wanted and compared which packages had which shows, then tested maybe 6 different services.  I used DirectvNow for a few months, but it started having issues, so I then switched to Hulu, and I've been pleased with Hulu live TV for many months now.

Also for some shows you can watch directly from their website (The walking dead for example - AMC is not on my streaming service, but I use my tablet and watch it on AMC.com)

  God is a Cowboy

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You don't even have to work at getting what you want anymore.

I am doing Netflix/Hulu Live and I see absolutely everything I want. I might add the HBO app when Game of Thrones comes out, then cancel it when it is done. 

Now if we could get municipal ISP's and really shut down these +++++ing bastards I would be happy. 

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53 minutes ago, dshawfan said:

Been contemplating cutting the cord for awhile now. Any advice for a newbie in regard to alternate TV packages?

YouTube TV is the best option as far as I'm concerned. It has pretty much every channel I could want or need to watch for football season other than the Pac-12 network. You can have five streams going at once, and the web interface is significantly better than any of the other services --- and I've used all of them over the last four years.

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I'm glad this topic came up. My two year contract with DirectTV ends in December and I after a decade with them, I'm saying bye Felicia. Why? They charged me for NFL Sunday Ticket. I never ordered it, but they just randomly decided to add it to my bill at $60 a pop, for six months. Took multiple phone calls, several hours and three months for them to get it off my bill. Then they had the nerve to charge me late fees because I didn't pay my full amount of the bill, as I didn't pay for the item I never ordered in the first place! And this is the second time in four years they have done this!

So a couple questions, if anyone can advise. I've been trying to figure out this cable cutting thing- 

1) If I cut out DirectTV, I'm assuming I still need to pay for an internet connection in my house in order to stream these services, correct?

2) How do I continue to access MW sports as most of those games are shown on CBS Sports? I'm pretty sure though Hulu Live TV, I can still get access but just want to confirm from someone who has done it. 

3) Sometimes due to work schedule, I'm not able to watch games live, but I like to record them and watch when I get home. How does DVR work with Hulu Live? Or something equivalent? 

 

I'm completely open for ideas and suggestions from someone who has done this before. I'm just afraid of cutting DirectTV and losing access to live sports, and losing the ability to record them. Thank you in advance!!!

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1 hour ago, dshawfan said:

Been contemplating cutting the cord for awhile now. Any advice for a newbie in regard to alternate TV packages?

Just have to do your research and know which channels you want. There are tons of different options but are all about the same in my opinion (just a few differences here and there).

If you've got a Roku or a SmartTV or something like that already - you can probably sign up for free trials and test them out.

I've got Hulu Live TV - which covers all of BSU's games (CBSSports, ESPNs, etc.)  It doesn't get the Pac-12 network though, so miss out on some of that action.

The only hiccups I've had are some slowdowns due to my shitty internet speed at peak times and the DVR ability is not as good.

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Just now, SixPack said:

1) If I cut out DirectTV, I'm assuming I still need to pay for an internet connection in my house in order to stream these services, correct?

2) How do I continue to access MW sports as most of those games are shown on CBS Sports? I'm pretty sure though Hulu Live TV, I can still get access but just want to confirm from someone who has done it. 

3) Sometimes due to work schedule, I'm not able to watch games live, but I like to record them and watch when I get home. How does DVR work with Hulu Live? Or something equivalent? 

1.) Yes.  

2.) That's what I have (Hulu Live) but I think there are other options as well. DirecTV Now, Playstation VUE (don't need the actual playstation), and others out there that get CBSsports.

3.) You can record games (50 hours of cloud storage), but if you start a game 30 minutes late and try to catch up during commercials though, you're going to have a bad time...it won't let me fast forward through the commercials so you've gotta catch up all during the halftime show.  You can buy a separate DVR ($200ish I think) that would give you more space and more control.  

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29 minutes ago, bsu_alum9 said:

The only hiccups I've had are some slowdowns due to my shitty internet speed at peak times and the DVR ability is not as good.

The UI blows as well, but Hulu sems very serious about becoming a player and seem to be listening to people about usability, and I am willing to bet on them at the moment. 

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Youtube tv offers the most local channels of the bunch and has many live sports channels but falls short on the tv channels. Sling tv like Hulu slows down during peak hours or if you have multiple users of your wifi at the same time. I'm looking into PS vue as I like the channels they offer, it satisfies what my wife and I like.

We're planning on moving this coming summer so after that I'll put up digital tv antenna so I'll get all the locals for free. 

Where cutting the cord helps is you don't pay monthly rental fees for equipment or for expensive packages and you can quit anytime without penalty.

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4 hours ago, MWC Tex said:
 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talk...919471002/

“Cable and satellite TV providers lost about 1.1 million subscribers during the July to September period, the largest quarterly loss ever – and the first time the industry lost more than 1 million subscribers in a quarter.”
 
This won’t be good the RSNs.  Or for major sports networks like ESPN.  We shouldn’t sign on with a RSN next TV contract.
 

How this erosion of market share hasn't forced cable/sat providers to offer REAL ala carte programming is a reflection of their mindset. They are still in collective DENIAL about the market landscape.

"You pukin morons are just plain too dumb."

-bluerules008 aka jibscout aka Hal "Mosquito Man" Newman

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4 hours ago, MWC Tex said:
This won’t be good the RSNs.  Or for major sports networks like ESPN.  We shouldn’t sign on with a RSN next TV contract.

What other option is there?

And how is this necessarily bad when Regional Sports Networks and ESPNs are all available through streaming services?

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6 minutes ago, bsu_alum9 said:

What other option is there?

And how is this necessarily bad when Regional Sports Networks and ESPNs are all available through streaming services?

Not all are on streaming platforms.

The other option is going more with the MWDN and Stadium.

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2 hours ago, UofNPackFan said:

People may be cutting the cord, they haven't stopped watching though. Many have just moved to a different platform.

I use PSVue.  Some use Prime, Hulu, Netflix,  or YouTube Red.  

So I still have my sports but pay a lot less than I did with cable.  I don't think sports stations are losing as much as we think, their advertising revenue stream is coming in from a different route is all.

If anything it is jobs lost for those who are employed by cable and satellite providers.

Yes, some have gone via OTT. However, from the number of losses vs gains on other platforms, only 30-35% move to the OTT platform.  The other just go with Netflix and OTA.

By the way, the % of TV households that don’t subscribe to pay TV has increased to 22% when it was only 19% a few years ago.  21% last year.

With an estimated 119 million TV households that means another 1.2 million households don’t pay for TV.  

Which is good for Stadium TV and their OTA network push.

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42 minutes ago, RogueStout said:

The UI blows as well, but Hulu sems very serious about becoming a player and seem to be listening to people about usability, and I am willing to bet on them at the moment. 

I think Disney owns most of Hulu now that they bought Fox, so it seems like they are definitely going to pump money in to them. I can’t recall where I read this, but supposedly once Disney+ launches next year (their Netflix-style streaming service) they will allow people to (ironically) bundle it with Hulu and ESPN+. If Hulu live can be a part of that it would basically be a one stop shop for everything you need in terms of streaming. 

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3 hours ago, SalinasSpartan said:

I think Disney owns most of Hulu now that they bought Fox, so it seems like they are definitely going to pump money in to them. I can’t recall where I read this, but supposedly once Disney+ launches next year (their Netflix-style streaming service) they will allow people to (ironically) bundle it with Hulu and ESPN+. If Hulu live can be a part of that it would basically be a one stop shop for everything you need in terms of streaming. 

The other thing is that Disney will be pulling all of it's movies from Netflix next year.  Movies like Star Wars , Marvel movies and any Disney movie  will only be found on Hulu and Disney+.  It's going to take a while for Disney+ to catch on so they will be pumping their movies over to Hulu as well.

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