Netflix and Hulu are Not Killing Cable
cabletv.com
cabletv.com
Hard choice.
So the barrier to entry is free knowledge, if you already have the same requirements to watch Netflix/Hulu.
The video quality is also higher for less effort on cable. What I think it will take for the displacement to happen is another large improvement in the internet connectivity to American homes and smartphones. Netflix exploded video rentals already, but cable is not quite the same business.
That's where streaming/torrent/pirate solutions keep failing, and not understanding why. Nirvana nailed it: "here we are now, entertain us." The cheaper the price tag, the more technical know-how is involved. Popcorn Time came close, but still requires geek skillz. We're talking people who don't quite grasp "enter key" or "space bar" (much less "grep"), people who just want a limited linear list of what's available right now, who want to pick a channel generally filled with content they'll like, and who just want it to keep going without involvement.
Netflix is great - when you know what you want and are inclined to find it. When they finally get a consistent flow of new content, and set up "channels" inclined toward specialization with a good mix of shows, with some live content thrown in, then cable TV will have reason to panic.
Drop-dead idiot-proof simple. No wonder it took Steve Jobs to "crack" video, and we still don't know what he figured out (akin to "I found a marvelous proof, but this margin is too small...").
Things are broken up by genre or new releases just like they used to be in video stores because it's pretty intuitive way to browse movies. "I feel like watching something funny, show me all comedies". Netflix also takes it 1 step further and tries to sort it by relevance based on previous watches.
Their interface for DVD players is quite good too. The search is smart and it only takes seconds to go from the DVD player being off to watching a stream from Netflix.
I rarely load up Netflix knowing exactly what I want to watch. I have ideas based on genre what I want and Netflix lets me browse reasonably. I've been a sub for almost as long as they've been around and I still find good stuff. The only thing that lacks is newer releases on stream but you can blame the media providers for that.
My cable provider sometimes offers free access for a month to their on demand/pay per month movie service and it's a joke. Things are listed alphabetically with 90 pages to go through or it's by genre but you're stuck going through 28 pages of alphabetical results where you see nothing but the movie title and a 1 sentence plot. It's an awful user experience.
For the same reason, the 90 page channel listing, dominated by "your not subscribed to this but we're going to show it to you anyway in hopes you might upgrade to include it" and "here's 37 duplicate channels all showing the same movie at slightly offset timeslots", has got to be driving people away - many staying only because there isn't a brain-dead-easy option hearkening to the days of 4 channels.
I hope that market segment with half a dozen choices never becomes fully main stream. I like choice in moderation (ie. web frameworks with opinions) but movies are just entirely different.
There's just too many interesting genres and type of movies to filter a list of 100,000 movies down to a handful. It's a very complicated problem to solve and might be unsolvable until we have huge break throughs in how machines process human input.
Example, how would you solve this problem: Customer A watches 5 comedies in a row then is proposed a choice of 3 movies. 1 comedy, 1 sci-fi and 1 romance.
If customer A picks the sci-fi movie you cannot conclude that he didn't like the comedy or romance choices. He just happened to prefer watching a sci-fi movie that night. You don't even know the outside conditions too. Maybe his friend is over sitting in the room while they pick the movie, you simply cannot know.
The cable interface is also bad, but things are broken out by genre and broadcast station (eg some people prefer HBO stuff). It's a bit annoying because it's slower and I have to use a remote control, but that hasn't prevented my finding things I want to watch. Neither side is going to win by interface, but on selection; Netflix has fewer hits but more depth, Cable offers more populist and newer stuff.
I'd drop them instantly without thinking twice if a better solution existed with equal or better selection, cheaper prices and more promising short term goals.
Binge-watching happens because Netflix autoplays the next episode each time. They could take it one further by making more content decisions for the user, going beyond proffering recommendations, which still require user action.
I realize some of this is not perfectly logical and is contradictory. However, I see it as a broken system, with entrenched players acting poorly, and the best way to force adaptation is to pay when they offer me a way to and not pay when they don't. My hope is that this incentivizes the power players to move towards a system where all content is available for purchase should someone want to purchase it (which, given the minimal barriers to uploading copyrighted content, seems like they should have embraced long ago - especially as companies like Netflix and Amazon monitor pirated content to determine their targets).
Streaming-based services such as Amazon, Netflix and Blinkbox (owned by supermarket giant Tesco) let you subscribe on a month-to-month basis or film-by-film basis. These services feel more flexible because they're not trying to sell you a whole bunch of channels, some of which you may not have much interest in.
Interestingly, even the BBC can see where the market is heading for many viewers. Their "youth" channel BBC Three (aimed at 16-34 year olds) will stop broadcasting terrestially and become an online-only channel via their iPlayer service. I guess this reflects how more and more people consume content today - they don't consult a TV schedule, they expect to be able to view content when it suits them.
Regardless, it is silly to argue right now that Netflix/Hulu are the primary causes.
I'd absolutely be a cord cutter if it weren't for cable NFL games and Syracuse Basketball.
My (and HuffPost's) reading of the Experian graph is that 18% of households with Hulu or Netflix have no cable TV service, while cabletv.com reverses it: 'only 18% of “cord cutters” have Netflix OR Hulu.'
I didn't go through the sign-up form to download the study itself, and the graph appears not to have been made by Edward Tufte, so it's hard to say for sure. Anybody read the actual study?
The plot is essentially saying that if you compare the "average household" to the households of Netflix and Hulu subscribers, customers in the latter are about 2.5-3 times more likely to be "cable cutters". This is what what I would call "Netflix and Hulu killing cable."
The whole premise of their article is flawed on a misreading of a figure. The study they cite contradicts their claims.
Here are their slides: http://www.experian.com/assets/marketing-services/brochures/...
> ... about 11% of all Americans subscribe to Netflix.
Netflix's latest numbers show 35.7 million subscribers, but the author is only giving credit for one person per Netflix subscription. With 115 million US households (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html), that gives Netflix access to 31% of households.
I'm a Comcast customer in the SF Bay Area. Six months ago I only had Internet service; no TV. I called customer service in search of a better deal, and it turned out I could lower my total bill by adding TV service! In other words, Internet alone is now more expensive than Internet + TV. So they're now /subsidizing/ TV service (or at least discounting Internet service) to inflate their TV subscriber count.
Are others having similar experiences?
Interestingly, I saw the other day that AT&T is proposing to offer fibre in SF and Oakland/Berkeley, which would be a game changer.
A few weeks later another representative came to my door and did not bother with claiming to check my service quality. He simply offered me the same deal. I pointed out that it made no sense to me. He then admitted that the cable operator was negotiating a deal with Time Warner Cable to merge with them and they wanted to inflate their subscriber numbers. That at least made some sense to me so I agreed.
Some months later the regional cable operator effectively ceased to exist and I now got bills from TWC. I forget the exact timing but either just before or just after this my monthly billing for cable services increased significantly and I called to cancel the television services I never used which returned the total to approximately the original amount.
Aren't TWC and Comcast in talks currently (I believe the FCC may also be involved)?
What I see here is a sign that ultimately, the fate of this industry is to follow the path of record companies towards irrelevance. The only difference being that record companies could only still make a few dimes selling ringtones, while comcast still faces close to zero competition as a decent internet provider in many areas.
Speaking of Hulu/Netflix, make no mistake, they will gradually replace cable companies in terms of being crippled with ads and too expensive and I guarantee you that we will hate them equally.
> What about cable without cable TV?
This still doesn't exist yet. Even for HBO GO access, Comcast still forces you to be a basic cable subscriber.
AT&T did a similar thing when people were going DSL-only. I had AT&T DSL + phone line and called to cancel the phone line, they gave me the phone line for 12 months at $5 a month simply so they could show their shareholders that people weren't cutting the cord. That was cheaper than the VOIP provider I was planning on going with, so I stuck with it another year, didn't really use it though.
Cable's user experience is horrible, it's terribly expensive, it's price grows many times the rate of inflation, users feel screwed because they are forced to buy packages of channels they have no interest in, and feel forced to "bundle" to feel less screwed.
Comcast regularly wins the "Worse Company of the Year" award, and has terrible customer experiences.
None of Cable's deficiencies have anything to do with Netflix or Hulu. In the end, the thing that kills Cable won't be Netflix or Hulu, it will be Cable that kills Cable. The Cable industry are pigs which will soon get slaughtered by their own greedy hands.
Netflix and Hulu are just there to pick up the pieces.
I'm sure the cable companies do it on purpose to skew subscriber numbers in their favor.
Content providers matching their sales model to viewing habits seems to be an inevitable future. It's going to be painful process getting there though.
Yes, internet delivered services are killing "cable-only TV" when "cable-only TV" starts becoming something else. If HBO is now letting Comcast subscribers watch HBO-Go episodes of Game of Thrones, then HBO is no longer "cable-only TV!" In fact, I'd say that with piracy, many "cable" content producers are no longer in the business of cable-only TV! They are now in the digital content producing business.
If traditional cable subscribers are declining at the same rate that people are dying of old age, then this suggests that young people are not becoming new cable subscribers and this does spell the end.