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People associate streaming television with commercial free TV. But in the last two years, Sling, Playstation Vue, DirectTV Now, Hulu, and Youtube TV have tried to introduce lower cost commercial TV, often with the same channels that you get from cable.
So far it seems to have been greeted with a giant yawn. DirectTV Now only expanded for 3 months, and then leveled off at roughly 1/3 million subscribers.
Layer3TV is still in very early stages of offering Internet Protocol TV, but unlike the other companies, it is at least as expensive as cable if not more so They are after people looking for a better interface than their current provider.
Comcast is talking about moving into IPTV in a big way.
Every single month is more bad news for Cable TV. This is a "big yawn"? I don't think so...
The destruction of Cable TV is multi headed. It is being led by people who simply look at their web browser and watch commercial free services like Netflix and Hbo Now and Amazon. Or who simply play games.
The "big yawn" I am talking about is commercial television that is being streamed, normally at much lower price than cable TV. I don't consider half a million subscribers for each of the streaming services very much out of a hundred million total subscribers.
It was thought that DirectTV Now would reach 2 million subscribers in a year, and it seems to have reached a plateau at 1/3 million.
Since I posted AT&T has decided to offer subscribers to AT&T unlimited cellular a $25 a month coupon towards Direct TV Now after 90 days. That is very generous and should jump start both subscriptions and new cellular customers.
I'd love to know where you are getting your information. I disagree with much of it. Cord Cutting is very much still happening with Televisions... not Internet Browsers. Roku has 13 MILLION monthly active users last I saw. 1 in 8 televisions sold is a "Roku TV". This does NOT Include the Amazon Fire Stick watchers (Amazon doesn't release numbers) Android TV people or Apple TV.
I also don't think ATT's offer is going to have a huge impact on its' wireless subscriber numbers.
I tried out Playstation Vue's 7 day trial on my PS4 and was not impressed. The max frame rate was 30 fps, which made live video events such as sports look -wrong- and put a hitch in 24 fps stuff recorded on film (movies, etc.). The image had a border / frame. It was soft. It had contrast issues. It was worse watching its "live TV" and a little better watching its "on demand" (but still well below something like FiOS or Amazon Prime / Netflix or Blu-ray in all measures I just mentioned).
On top of that, the "DVR" is really just a grid-based on-demand function. You couldn't, for instance, see an old episode of a favorite show or an old movie being shown and hit "record." You can watch the last few episodes of selected current shows, only.
Finally, on both "live" TV" and "on demand," the pause / rewind / fast forward functions were fairly unresponsive, compared to FiOS or Prime / Netflix.
This is all on an excellent 54/56 mbit/s connection and a 1080p screen that I've tweaked to perfection in the service menu.
I decided no, not at this time. I'll wait for competition and technology to bring improvements. My situation is a little different, because I actually don't have a cord to cut since I don't have TV access at home at all. I have Prime and use someone's Netflix login and I've used FiOS extensively at a couple of friends' places (FiOS is everywhere here). So I'd be *adding* another bill, which makes it a tougher sell for me.
I'd love to know where you are getting your information. I disagree with much of it. Cord Cutting is very much still happening with Televisions... not Internet Browsers. Roku has 13 MILLION monthly active users last I saw. 1 in 8 televisions sold is a "Roku TV". This does NOT Include the Amazon Fire Stick watchers (Amazon doesn't release numbers) Android TV people or Apple TV.
I also don't think ATT's offer is going to have a huge impact on its' wireless subscriber numbers.
IPTV is very healthy with Netflix having over 50 milliion subscribers. But Commercial television delivered over IPTV as a cheaper alternative than QAM digital television is not growing very fast.
IPTV is very healthy with Netflix having over 50 milliion subscribers. But Commercial television delivered over IPTV as a cheaper alternative than QAM digital television is not growing very fast.
It doesn't need to. Most of us don't want it anymore. It is dying.
I much prefer streaming through Roku than having Cable. Always something to watch, when I want to watch it.
I could never say the same for Cable TV. I pay money for it, for several of my favorite channels...but it's not anywhere as expensive as Cable TV was.
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