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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> "But the whole idea that there’s a lot of people out there that want to drop multichannel TV, and just have a Netflix or an HBO — that’s not right. Look for the data, you won’t find them."

Well, what is the data then? Don't say it doesn't exist, tell me what the actual numbers are.

I know I don't have "multichannel TV" but would pay for HBO+Netflix. Now I'm actually kind of curious what percentage of Americans feel the same way.

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Here's one source, though I don't think anyone's ever accused Nielsen of being particularly scientific...

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/i-wa...

"Americans spend 35 hours each week watching content across screens, and 94 percent of that is still on a traditional television."

(This isn't exactly the same as people who for-sure don't "want to" drop traditional TV, but my suspicion is that anyone consuming 35 hours (!!) a week needs the 100-channels-24-7 stream of traditional cable or satellite to sate them. Pay-as-you-go has a way to go before it's cost-effective compared to that.)

I would suggest looking at Comcast's subscriber numbers they release with their quarterly earnings. They are still gaining subscribers. I'm not sure they have recovered to pre-recession levels yet. Employment & housing have such a huge impact on the cable industry it's hard to decouple the data. You could argue the subscriber drops of previous years were due to IP video but now that the numbers are on the rebound that seems unlikely unless people switched to IP video exclusively and found it to be inadequate. It's also important to look at Comcast (and others) own IP video solutions which are not talked about a lot but may fill the void that would otherwise send customers into IP-only solutions. If you have Comcast and you want to watch TV on your iPad the easiest way is to just use the XFINITY TV app. The cable MSOs were very slow to take IP video seriously but, IMO, they are in much better shape now. I'm sure HBO is aware of this too. They are betting that bundled linear/IP services are going to be the way most customers consume media.

They are still gaining subscribers.

Internet subscribers yes; TV, no:

"Comcast's video subscriber base continued to shrink, though at a slower rate than in recent quarters. It lost 176,000 subscribers during the period."

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/comcast-earnings-beat-street-intern...

But it's worse than that. The number of households in the US has increased by about 1.1% per year for the past 20 years. If Comcast and HBO aren't growing their raw US subscriber numbers by at least 1.1% per year - probably more given that they mainly serve urban markets that typically outpace rural growth - then they're falling behind household growth.

http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1129.pdf

Unsure. I know we haven't had cable/sat for six years now and haven't looked back. Sure, I miss the history channel from time to time, but the only time we watch TV is for superbowl, etc. The rest of the time we stream through netflix or amazon, so we went from $150 or so a month to 7.00 for amazon prime and 8.00 netflix.

I don't think we're alone, which gets to your point about how many people are out there. How would you even begin to measure that number?

If you miss the history channel of six years ago, trust me, you're not missing anything now.

Right. It doesn't exist, so I don't see the point in mourning.

I've found netflix's offering of old History channel programs to be pretty good. They are from the heyday of The History Channel (late 90s, early 2000s) when HC was making high production-quality shows that were actually about history. It's better than the live channel content.

It may be limited in how much content it has, but I've been watching it on and off for a few months and I still have a lot left.

I would recommend the old HC shows to anyone remotely interested in history. The 13 part mini-series on the US revolutionary war is the pinnacle of depth and production-value that you just can't find anywhere else, especially not on live TV. National Geographic also has high-quality stuff, but I have explored it less.

How much would it cost to run a scientifically sound research poll on this?

The cost to conduct a survey like this would be really interesting to know. I would love to see a kickstarter for surveys. Maybe survey's are too expensive though ...

I know I don't have "multichannel TV" but would pay for HBO+Netflix.

I would too, but that's not the right question to ask. You need to ask who would pay enough. I am told adding HBO to a cable subscription is about $20, and that is an add-on, which means it doesn't even include infrastructure, advertisement, delivery, etc. So, while there are plenty of people who would pay $3 to have HBO+Netflix, how many would pay enough?

> infrastructure, advertisement, delivery

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but I have a Roku which I watch Netflix and HBO GO on. It cost $50 and connects via HDMI and Wi-Fi.

I think you may be overestimating the overhead costs for HBO deployment.

Oh, I'm not saying they are huge costs, I'm just trying to point out that $20 doesn't necessarily capture all of the costs. You aren't paying $20 for HBO in isolation.

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