Tt proposed post jan 9, 2016

"There is still something to be said for convenience."

Convenience, lower cost, options, and lack of commercials are some reasons why we don't have cable. Nothing inconvenient about our setup. When I want over-the-air channels, I press a button. Even I find that easy.

But I watch hardly any sports, therefore it's a snap for us to live without ESPN and the other sports channels. After the NFL and a smattering of college football, the only other sport that I watch is The Masters golf tournament in April, and I watch that with over-the-air TV and the tablet set to Amen Corner.

No doubt, it's probably much harder for sports geeks to be a cord-cutter.

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actual comment:

"There is still something to be said for convenience."

Convenience, more interesting options at a lower cost, and a lack of commercials are some reasons why we don't have cable.

But I watch hardly any sports, therefore it's a snap for us to live without ESPN and the other sports channels. No doubt, it's probably much harder for sports geeks to be cord-cutters.

It appears that many users have taken this to another level.

Dec 21, 2015 Washington Post story that referenced a recent Pew Research Center survey titled Home Broadband 2015. From the WaPo story:

...a quarter of the country can be called "cord-cutters" or "cord-nevers" ...

Only 6 in 10 cord-cutters still subscribe to home broadband service — such as DSL, cable Internet or fiber — at all, the Pew survey shows. The rest rely primarily on their cellular devices to stream shows and movies.

... with new offerings such as T-Mobile's Binge On — which lets you stream as much Netflix, Hulu, or HBO Now as you want without drawing from your monthly data plan — cellular carriers are poised to take advantage of the trend toward mobile cord-cutting in a tremendous way.

The Toledo Blade could manage a channel over Roku or similar devices.

August 2015 Columbia Journalism Review story titled How local papers are looking ‘over the top’ as part of a new model for video :

They are video news clips out of Beaver County, population 170,000, just outside Pittsburgh along the Ohio border, but there’s something different about them: There’s no anchor or on-screen reporter, and if there’s any narration at all it’s void of that familiar newscaster voice inflection.

That’s because these segments are produced by the local newspaper, The Beaver County Times, for its channel on the Roku streaming media player.

While the rise of Roku and competitors like Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Google’s ChromeCast has made it easier for viewers to access their favorite shows without a cable subscription, it has also created new opportunities for media producers to reach audiences while bypassing FCC licensing and the expensive equipment of traditional broadcasting stations.

It’s an opportunity, in other words, for a newspaper to launch its own TV station.

Even diminished newspapers have more reporting resources than most TV stations, and most print-legacy newsrooms have trained their staff to shoot video for the Web.

#media #tv #internet