Spectrum Socks It To Us Again (to buy, landlord, costs)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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We also cut directv after nearly 20 years with them and went to streaming tv, first with Playstation Vue and then with Directv Now. Our bill went from $150+ to $35/month. We also have Netflix and Hulu, yet still pay less than half of what we did previously.
Why did you switch from Vue to Direct TV NOW if you don't mind me asking? I am considering the same.
They dropped Viacomm, which includes stations such as Comedy Central, Spike, TV Land, VH1, MTV, etc. There are specific shows on Spike my wife couldn't do without, which prompted the change.
In the TV business the people making the money are the content producers such as Disney.
Content is king. Some companies have tried to be in both the content business and the distribution business. That's how movies worked prior to 1948... Paramount made movies, Paramount distributed movies, and Paramount theaters exhibited movies.
Comcast is still hot to be in both the content business and the distribution business. On the other hand, there was a time when Time Warner did both; they owned Time Warner Cable as well as HBO, CNN, Turner, etc. Time Warner eventually decided that it was better to be in content alone, so they sold Time Warner Cable.
Charter is a pure player in distribution.
Of course, the content owners have to pay attention to how their content is distributed. Disney is very conscious of their reliance on ESPN and the risk that people will drop off cable systems despite the near-exclusivity that the cable systems have with sports. If the content owners see that their profits are turning down because they are too tied to one specific class of distribution channels (AT&T, Verizon, Charter), the content owners will change. That's true for the pro sports leagues and the NCAA and its conferences too, but we're talking billions of dollars and those alignments change slowly.
Just sent this as a comment to the Federal Communications Commission:
This relates to both content providers and cable companies.
Not everyone watches sports, and sports programming is the most expensive content sold to cable companies.
Spectrum (Time-Warner) just announced an $8/month surcharge to cover sports programming. Their explanation is that content providers will not let the cable companies not take all channels for each subscriber. So, the cable company will not put sports in a separate tier where subscribers can either purchase it or decline it.
This is terribly unfair. Besides the expensive ESPN, we must pay the surcharge even though our set top boxes could easily filter out the sports channels if we did not purchase them.
Content providers need to be barred from selling their wares on an "all or none" basis.
Has anyone tried the DirectTV app? DirectTV is of course by AT&T now, but I don't think the app requires AT&T as an ISP to use it, and its $35 a month.
I use a Roku as my streaming device over AT&T fiber, but they have not yet released the Roku version of the app, so I'm looking for feedback from those who have tried it on another platform. There is a 7 day free trial, but I want to test drive it where I will actually use it (on the Roku) after that version is released.
I assume $35 gives access to all the same channels as DirectTV satellite?
What you are talking about is the Direct TV Now offering which does have apps including on the Fire Stick. The content isn't necessarily the same as they offered on satellite Direct TV. However, DirecTV now has apps on the Fire Stick and Apple TV while satellite Direct TV does not. I bet that DirectTv now will show up on Roku soon.
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Location: Cary, NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CapitalBlvd
Just sent this as a comment to the Federal Communications Commission:
This relates to both content providers and cable companies.
Not everyone watches sports, and sports programming is the most expensive content sold to cable companies.
Spectrum (Time-Warner) just announced an $8/month surcharge to cover sports programming. Their explanation is that content providers will not let the cable companies not take all channels for each subscriber. So, the cable company will not put sports in a separate tier where subscribers can either purchase it or decline it.
This is terribly unfair. Besides the expensive ESPN, we must pay the surcharge even though our set top boxes could easily filter out the sports channels if we did not purchase them.
Content providers need to be barred from selling their wares on an "all or none" basis.
Thank you.
The profitable stuff you don't want helps defray the costs of the stuff you want.
How much more would you pay for the availability of a line-by-line menu?
20% more? 50% more?
What you are talking about is the Direct TV Now offering which does have apps including on the Fire Stick. The content isn't necessarily the same as they offered on satellite Direct TV. However, DirecTV now has apps on the Fire Stick and Apple TV while satellite Direct TV does not. I bet that DirectTv now will show up on Roku soon.
Thanks for responding. I thought at a price point like $35 per month, surely the content selection must be same as satellite.
The more I look at it, the less interested I am. To get all of the channels I have with Spectrum, they want $70 per month, and that's with no DVR. I would watch very little TV without the ability to record what I want so I can watch when I want. I know they have video on demand, but I very much doubt they have all shows ever created on each channel available, so I'm probably still better off with Spectrum. SlingTV and other options I've looked at just don't cover all the channels we watch.
Thanks for responding. I thought at a price point like $35 per month, surely the content selection must be same as satellite.
The more I look at it, the less interested I am. To get all of the channels I have with Spectrum, they want $70 per month, and that's with no DVR. I would watch very little TV without the ability to record what I want so I can watch when I want. I know they have video on demand, but I very much doubt they have all shows ever created on each channel available, so I'm probably still better off with Spectrum. SlingTV and other options I've looked at just don't cover all the channels we watch.
If you WANT what is provided the cost is reasonable. Compare the monthly cost to taking a family of 4 to a movie these days.
For those who don't want to pay those prices and don't want those channels, there are other, slimmer options. Me personally I don't even turn a TV on. Ever. My wife uses it for background noise most days. I find as days go on we watch less and less.
If you WANT what is provided the cost is reasonable. Compare the monthly cost to taking a family of 4 to a movie these days.
I would never compare any of these in-home services to seeing movies at the box office upon release, that would be apples to oranges. I'm comparing streaming "cord cutting" strategies to cable.
And maybe you're right in a way, $70 a month for all of the channels they offer is not bad if you have no other options or don't need a DVR, but a comparable plan without DVR service on Spectrum is about $65, and as I said the DVR capability is critical to me (which Spectrum sticks me for something like another $25). I don't know if it's possible to replace the recording and ease of programming I get with the DVR in a cord-cut world.
Keep in mind cable gives me "dedicated bandwidth" for TV, letting everyone else and their devices use the ISP without one affecting the performance of the other. Cord cutting all uses the same critical resource.
Plus, once you get into cord cutting you start having to learn the user interface for a dozen different apps, none of which are difficult per se, but most of which work differently. Not a big problem if you stick to one app, but DirectTVNow doesn't offer much in terms of local channels (I saw only one). So then if you want WRAL you have to download THEIR app, which didn't work the last time I tried it.
Too many damn moving parts, too much dispersed responsibility to keep everything working. At least with cable there is a single source of responsibility, and when something doesn't work I only have one number to call to get it resolved.
I still like my Roku (to replace what I used to do with DVD rentals, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc), but for TV channels I can't seem to get any compelling reason to cut the cord.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wheelsup
For those who don't want to pay those prices and don't want those channels, there are other, slimmer options. Me personally I don't even turn a TV on. Ever. My wife uses it for background noise most days. I find as days go on we watch less and less.
But the slimmer options always seem to have some off-putting trade-off. Like you don't get DIY Network or Nat Geo Wild until you go with the $60 tier. If you're not into TV it might be hard to relate, but for us, TV time is an enjoyable get together, but is highly dependent on being able to watch particular shows. It's not like we can just sit down and start surfing channels. Being able to record and skip commercials is an important part of it.
I get offended by these services like Hulu plus that want a subscription fee AND to force me to watch commercials.
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