Cutting the cord

[Northwestcoug]

If you paid the same monthly fee that every other cable and satellite subscriber currently pays, your monthly figure would be about $7. I would pay that. The problem is, once that a la carte option becomes available, the whole system comes crumbling down and $7/mo will no longer cover ESPN's costs. It needs all $92 million cable and satellite subscribers to pay that amount. The vast majority of those subscribers would not pay it if they had the option.

The article you posted summed that problem up nicely. ESPN is on a bubble, taking their overshare of cable revenue and spending it on overpriced broadcast rights. Once the bottom falls out of cable viewership, the bubble will burst.

[Moliere]

The article you posted summed that problem up nicely. ESPN is on a bubble, taking their overshare of cable revenue and spending it on overpriced broadcast rights. Once the bottom falls out of cable viewership, the bubble will burst.

Once the bubble bursts, HD trucks will become scarce and BYU will rule the landscape.


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[wuapinmon]

It's going to be interesting seeing what this 30-year bubble bursting does to player salaries.

[Uncle Ted]

I would pay for it as well, however I'd only watch live games. If I want to see highlights, I go to their website (or app) and watch highlights of games I care about. Gone are the days that I have to sit through 20 minutes of baseball highlights before being able to watch Laker highlights.

If cable went to an À la carte model I would only buy sports channels for live events. Nothing else on cable is interesting to me. Usually I wait for most movies and TV shows to hit Netflix or something before watching them even if that means I wait for the season to end before watching it. There is lots of other TV shows/movies to watch while I wait. Cable news is all just a bunch of political b*tching and very little actual news so I don't watch it any more. It is too easy to get the news I am interested in off the internet without all the other crap. The same is true for sports highlights and news as you pointed out.

I think I would even go for a pay-per-view model for sporting events that I am interested in. Say, for example, BYU lost its ESPN contract and simply changed to watch its football games live using its BYUtv streaming. To supplement the pay-per-view revenue they could also sell ads. BYU seems uniquely position to survive independently when this bubble pops. Other schools may not be so lucky. Their conference contracts may not be renewed by the networks and another round of conference realignments may leave them out in the cold.

[Omaha 680]

I'm sure supergenius Larry Scott knows the solution to all this.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I'm sure supergenius Larry Scott knows the solution to all this.

Hahaha. In might be kind of funny if what I've complained is his biggest failure, not getting the P12 network partnered with ESPN ends up being what saves the conferece. If ESPN continues to lose at this level, the first cuts will be their conference network partners. I'm not giving Larry the credit of that forethought, but I bet he'll claim it if that happens.

[Joe Public]

Laker highlights

.

[falafel]

YouTubeTV just announced that it has added TNT/CNN/TBS, along with their associated networks. I know this was a big hole for people who watch a lot of basketball.

[Northwestcoug]

YouTubeTV just announced that it has added TNT/CNN/TBS, along with their associated networks. I know this was a big hole for people who watch a lot of basketball.

Still not available in my area

[Donuthole]

YouTubeTV just announced that it has added TNT/CNN/TBS, along with their associated networks. I know this was a big hole for people who watch a lot of basketball.

Yes it was indeed.

[falafel]

Yes it was indeed.

They also added CBS as the last local station, so they have all of them covered now. And of course, CBS is essential for March Madness.

[wuapinmon]

So, we got tired of adding streaming services and just got basic cable back; we kept Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix, but the rest (e.g. Sling, CBS) are gone. The cable company was so happy, they upped our internet service to 100 mbps for free, not a teaser rate. It was a push with getting rid of those other services. It also doesn't disconnect if the internet goes out. We still have HBO NOW too it was the same price either way.

[Bo Diddley]

I hate Comcast. I was paying over $170/month to the Devil. When I called to cancel, the best they could do was $130-something. No thanks. I'm not a gamer, so the $45-80gb lifetime rate I got from CenturyLink will do for me. Yes, I realize one day I'll need more bandwidth, but that's quite a few years off, I think.

I'm playing around with the streaming services to see who we'll stick with. Of course we use Prime and Netflix is included in our family plan with T-Mobile. For now I think we're going with Directv Now for $42.78. It has all the channels the missus likes to watch.

[falafel]

I hate Comcast. I was paying over $170/month to the Devil. When I called to cancel, the best they could do was $130-something. No thanks. I'm not a gamer, so the $45-80gb lifetime rate I got from CenturyLink will do for me. Yes, I realize one day I'll need more bandwidth, but that's quite a few years off, I think.

I'm playing around with the streaming services to see who we'll stick with. Of course we use Prime and Netflix is included in our family plan with T-Mobile. For now I think we're going with Directv Now for $42.78. It has all the channels the missus likes to watch.

Funny that you say that you don't think you'll need more than 80 GB internet (what is that, btw - your download max? Your monthly limit?) just as you are ditching cable and going all in on streaming services. You will likely wish you had faster speeds within the next 12 months.

[Northwestcoug]

Update:

We cut the cord almost a year ago now. I upped the monthly limit on our broadband, got HDTV antennas, and tried out Sling. This was on top of already having Netflix and Amazon Prime. Somewhere along the way, we subscribed to HBO, primarily to watch Westworld. We still have it, despite rarely using it now. Mrs. NWC just added MLBTV at the reduced price of 50 bucks, to watch the remaining Red Sox games

Sling is fine, but not great. We paid an extra 5 a month to get ESPNs. Streaming quality is acceptable. I'm happy that we don't have cable anymore; we wasted years of it because kids never watched it. Still, there's just not a lot of watching going on in our house, outside of Netflix. I'll start watching again when season 3 of 'The Man in the High Tower' starts. And we might revisit 'Jack Ryan', just a couple of episodes in now.

I still want to switch to YouTube TV, but it still says it isn't available for my zip code.