8 ms·

Cable companies have started showing fewer ads because of Netflix

125 points by rajathagasthya 11y ago

zeckalpha 11y ago
Supply and demand -> They can charge more for less.
jakozaur 11y ago
15:38 per hour of showtime + 2 minute of re-runs in some programs. Netflix got zero, just enjoy your movie. Looks like cable companies are still in denial phase. How about ad-free versions of their channels?
- raverbashing 11y ago
  > How about ad-free versions of their channels? Apparently that was what cable was all about at the beginning It's hard to lure back people to an inferior product.
  - draugadrotten 11y ago
    The ad-free historiy of cable also tells you the future of Netflix and other streaming services. Bait...and switch!
    - ssharp 11y ago
      When I had Hulu Plus, it was actually worse than cable because it forced you to sit through commercials. If I recorded the show on cable, I could fast forward through them at least.
      - Itaxpica 11y ago
        Hulu Plus recently added an option where you can pay a bit extra (like two bucks a month) to make it ad free. It makes it a way more pleasant experience.
        surge 11y ago
        Only on certain shows, Hulu is still owned by networks that don't "get it".
        jerf 11y ago
        Yes, but it's a short list. At the moment. Considering that the first derivative is at least for the moment away from ads, I am cautiously optimistic. I'm hoping that once Hulu has the data on the people paying those $2/month that it will reveal that there's a statistically-significant relationship between those shows still having ads, and the $2/month customers watching less of them per capita. (My wife recently wanted us back on Hulu for Seinfeld, and it was a big factor in our decision to go back that we could turn off the ads, except in a set of shows we don't much care about.) My understanding of the economics is that $2/month is significantly more than they can hope to make in ads off me, so I'm hoping the money is enough to overcome any residual desire to advertise. (Once the ad addiction is broken, there's good reason to believe it'll stay broken. Nowadays it's easier to get people to just give you a buck rather than shave away pennies at a time through ads. Thirty years ago that wasn't true.)
    - evook 11y ago
      Which will result in going back to good ol' pirating. Again.
    - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
      I don't think this qualifies as true bait and switch.
  - narrowrail 11y ago
    > > How about ad-free versions of their channels? >Apparently that was what cable was all about at the beginning I wish people would stop saying this, as it was much more about difficulty in receiving OTA signals[0]. HBO is and always has been ad-free, however. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States#First_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United...
lentil_soup 11y ago
“Consumers are being trained there are places they can go to avoid ads.” With that kind of rhetoric no wonder they're still in denial.
- lsaferite 11y ago
  Yeah, that comment also jumped out at me as well. I really cannot fathom their thought processes.
- hwstar 11y ago
  All I can say is that is good. Ads (mostly) try to sell you something you really don't need. Additionally products which advertise can be 10-35% more expensive than products which don't.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  Ugh, yeah. Tell us how you really feel about consumers Time Warner.
sageabilly 11y ago
Even among my less technologically advanced friends and family there's maybe only a handful of people who still watch shows regularly on cable television. My in-laws watch TV shows but they record them and skip over the ads. Pretty much the only thing that I know of that anyone watches on cable and still sits through ads is live sports. Watching cable networks flail around and completely fail to understand that their business model is not relevant anymore is always hilarious. Now that Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have really good original programming there's even less of an incentive to have cable.
- ssharp 11y ago
  I'd love to "flail around" while still having two billion in annual profits.
  - surge 11y ago
    They're flailing because they're not showing growth and share holders hate that. If they show a 2% loss in subscribers or subscriber growth stagnates, that's enough for them to freak out, despite their profits.
    - solotronics 11y ago
      I work for the commercial fiber part of a cable ISP and we have been growing 25%+ for dedicated commercial fiber for a few years now but the residential customer revenue is growing at a much lower rate.
- chrisseaton 11y ago
  But don't the cable companies own Hulu? So they have realised the change is coming, and have already adapted.
  - thefreeman 11y ago
    Except Hulu (at least used to, it may have changed recently) still shows ads to their premium subscribers, which is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
hwstar 11y ago
This is why I dumped cable in 2008. "Hour long" American TV shows are some of the shortest in the world, and are filled with redundancy as viewers "forget" where they are in the show after a stack of ads every 6-8 minutes. This degrades the quality of the programming to the point it is not worth watching. PBS programs are 50+ minutes long, and BBC are 58-59 minutes long. The local PBS station has been showing short ads in the last 10 minute segment of the hour. That's acceptable and much better than interrupting the programming. In the future Broadcasters will not need transmitters, and Cable TV won't exist. All programming will be delivered over the Internet. Instead of tuning to channel 10 on your TV, your TV connects to the channel 10 website and you can choose what you want to watch. If you pay extra, you can see shows without ads.
nlawalker 11y ago
A question for those who have done more thinking on this than I have: I see cable TV going the way of the dedicated phone line - a bundled benefit you get for a very small fee on top of the primary benefit, which will be the internet connection. The overall cost of a subscription will remain roughly the same, but the cost will be allocated to the internet connection: much like mobile carriers are now basically free voice+text across the board and the cost of the plan is based solely on the data tier you want, what I see happening in the future is that both cable TV and home phone are going to be small add-ons to your $90-$120/month internet bill. In many markets there is virtually no competition present to prevent this, and in those where there is, collusion seems to be a foregone conclusion. This seems inevitable to me given the rise in cord-cutters and, as a recent headline pointed out, the "cord-nevers". Is this what's going to happen?
- macNchz 11y ago
  I have Time Warner internet-only service in NYC and they are constantly trying to sell me cable as a $10/month addon to my $35 50mbit internet package. I imagine it's a pretty limited set of channels, but they're very much already using that sales tactic.
  - surge 11y ago
    Right, and now you'll need a special box just to receive antenna TV over normal analog channel range which they'll rent to you for a fee (and they are notorious for providing slow boxes that take 3-5 seconds to flip to the next channel or pause for long seconds to display a menu, or need to be rebooted constantly). I had the $10 a month TV, but once I found out they were requiring the box, I just cancelled it, I was basically paying them to avoid using an antenna, but now I'll just get an antenna.
  - gtk40 11y ago
    Same thing with Charter for me. They constantly try to sell me a $7/month addon that will give access to over-the-air channels through cable. I got that with a >$10 HD antenna, so I'm not sure what the value would be. (and I've barely used that...)
ucaetano 11y ago
The article makes a confusion between cable companies (Comcast, TWC, Charter, etc.) and TV/content networks (Time Warner, FOX, Viacom, etc.).
jackgavigan 11y ago
It astounds me how much US TV airtime is devoted to adverts - roughly 18 minutes out of every hour, AFAIK (plus any split-screen advertising shenanigans). In the UK, (outside the BBC, which doesn't have adverts) TV broadcasters are limited to an overall average of 7 minutes per hour, with limits of 12 minutes for any individual clock hour (which drops to 8 minutes during primetime). The BBC's Natural History unit deliberately inserts ten minutes of "disposable" content that can be cut from the program when it is broadcast on commercial channels (e.g. the 'Yellowstone People' segments that were included at the end of episodes of 'Yellowstone' when it was broadcast on the BBC, but are dropped when it's broadcast on commercial channels).
- eterm 11y ago
  It's more nuanced than that, those are tighter rules for ITV1, C4, C5. The other channels, including the "freeview" offerings can have more advertising: (Other services) 1.1.2(B) (a) The total amount of spot advertising in any one day must not exceed an average of nine minutes per hour (15 per cent) of broadcasting. (b) This may be increased by a further three minutes per hour (5 per cent) devoted to teleshopping spots, but this additional 5 per cent must not be used for other forms of spot advertising. This doesn't at all change your point of course, we have good tight advertising laws in the UK, including a complete ban on any product placement whatsoever. (There was talk about loosening this rule, but I haven't seen evidence that happened to any significant degree.)
  - harryc2011 11y ago
    There certainly is product placement in the UK - see [1]. When watching these shows you'll see an opaque 'PP' logo flash up on the screen to let you know. [1] https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/advertising-opportunities/broadcast-advertising/product-placement https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/advertising-opportunities/broadca...
    - eterm 11y ago
      Ah, I had read they were going to bring it in, I just didn't think it had happened yet, I guess it's been longer than I remember since I've watched commercial TV.
LeonM 11y ago
My roommate called me recently that the TV was not working at home, because his girlfriend wanted to watch TV. As it turned out, we never plugged the cable into the TV, we have lived in the same house for 3 years and neither of us ever watched cable TV during that time. (we do have a cable subscription because where we live you can't get cable internet without the TV and radio part attached...) I never understood why someone would pay a ridiculous amount of money (compared to say netflix) for a cable subscription and still think it's OK to be watching to ads for 25% of the time... It's time for cable companies to accept the truth: their technology and business model is old fashioned (a free harddisk record to "pause" TV is a solution to a problem that should not exist!).
- coldpie 11y ago
  My girlfriend and I lived in our house for two years without even hooking up the roof antenna. Eventually I bothered to do it (not trivial, long story) because my girlfriend wanted to watch football. The idea of paying for network TV with ads is hilarious.
jimmar 11y ago
I can count on one hand the number of times my children have sat down and watched network TV. They are 4 and 7 years old. With ~15 minutes of commercials per hour, I've probably saved them from watching thousands of commercials, which I think is a good thing.
- timjahn 11y ago
  Same. They don't even really know what commercials are.
- eitally 11y ago
  Mine only ever see it in hotel rooms on vacation. The first time they experienced it, my son got very upset because we could pause it when he had to use the bathroom. The commercials irritated my wife & I so much we just turned it off entirely.
  - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
    My wife and I watch Netflix when we do watch anything (we have twin two year olds, so this is a rare luxury). For some reason or other we turned on 'regular' tv the other day and there was an NFL game on. We could not believe how many commercials there were! Also, just how insultingly unintelligent they were. I mean, who actually would want to watch these commercials!?
    - ahlatimer 11y ago
      As a football fan, the quantity of commercials is something else. CBS is particularly bad. You'll often see a touchdown, PAT, commercial break, cut back to the kickoff with the ball in mid-air which results in a touchback (so like 5 seconds worth of "content" which is really just a ball flying through the air and a guy catching it and kneeling down) followed by another round of commercials. It's insane. When I get particularly frustrated with it, I pause the game and go do something else for a good 15-20 minutes, then come back so I can at least fast forward through some of them.
- jonkiddy 11y ago
surge 11y ago
Too late, I'm already done with cable.
larrik 11y ago
Even beyond airtime, the stupid ads and logos blotting out the screen during a show is becoming inexcusable. Sometimes those things can take up a third of the screen!
- sizzzzlerz 11y ago
  And I noticed the other day that the Discovery channel logo is now animated. Its bad enough that it squats in the corner like a dog taking a shit, now your eyes are drawn to it because its moving. Fucking bastards!
clentaminator 11y ago
Aside from ads, freedom of choice with respect to just what you watch seem to be the other key motivator. With the capability of streaming and on-demand services, why would any consumer put up with having to choose any channel with a fixed programming schedule? I almost certainly don't want to watch what you're trying to sell. No other industry seems to operate in this manner. When it comes to books, games, music, etc, consumers choose specific products. With cable TV you don't get that granularity of choice. Netflix just brings the traditional TV model into alignment with seemingly everything else. Anecdotally, cable prices seem to rise but the new channels that are sold to me as a benefit are the exact opposite of what I watch. More sports channels? Despite me having never tuned into a single one? If you're going to profile me, at least make an effort to do it well.
- RHSeeger 11y ago
  Don't forget that, as a non-sports-watcher, you get to pay a fee to subsidize all the sports channels you don't watch. It's not even the cost of the channels, per se... you get the extra "regional sports surcharge" on top of that.
  - clentaminator 11y ago
    I never knew about that, so thanks. This is a significant argument against the traditional cable model, at least for me. Are there other genres (for want of a better term) where this applies?
    - MagicWishMonkey 11y ago
      It's around $6/month per subscriber - http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/how-much-cable-subscribers-pay-per-channel-1626/ http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/how-much-cable-subscribers-pay-...
  - icefox 11y ago
    At least Verizon FIOS in the Boston area lets you opt-out of all sports channels so you are not charged this fee.
silveira 11y ago
Too little, too late.
cJ0th 11y ago
I wonder whether netflix et al will introduce ads once cable is dead and the VoD market is saturated. After all, they too want to increase their profit at any point in time.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  As long as Netflix can appease investors by attracting new membership, they won't need ads. Once membership peaks they will have to start thinking of ways to keep their QER in the black (because investors can only see one single quarter into the future). That's when we have to worry.
_RPM 11y ago
It's absurd that one can pay for premium cable TV, and still must be forced to listen and watch advertisements. I refuse to watch cable TV advertisements. HBO is the only network I can stand to watch now. I have the most basic cable package because my Internet came with it, and it also came with HBO. I get so annoyed by advertisements on TV.
cletus 11y ago
Here's another explanation: every year the TV audience gets older [1]. Advertisers notoriously chase the coveted 18-49 demographic. Younger viewers are increasingly not watching traditional TV. So, you can view Time Warner's move to cut ads in prime time as simply a way of raising prices by reducing supply (inventory). As for cable companies shoving TV packages down customers throats, well that's easy to explain. The bargaining power a cable company has with media companies is directly proportional to how many TV subscribers they have. So every Internet-only customer a cable company has marginally raises the per-customer cost of TV. This is also why Comcast wanted to merge with Time Warner. It's simply about reducing TV costs. This business model really has to die. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/tv-is-increasingly-for-old-people/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/t...
- gorner 11y ago
  Time Warner Inc. (the company discussed in OP's article that owns HBO, CNN etc.) has been a separate company from Time Warner Cable since 2009. TWC is the one that Comcast tried to buy (and is now trying to merge with Charter).
qjighap 11y ago
So if they are showing less commercials how are they planning to lengthen programming to fill the 30/60 minute time slots? I understand new content can be altered, but re-editing old content would be most difficult.
unoti 11y ago
Netflix has sponsored all this cutting edge research on recommendation engines, and it can predict very well how much I'm going to enjoy something. Why in the world won't it just show me a list of 4 and 5 star things? Are they afraid I'll just watch those things over the course of a month then stop subscribing? The clunkiness of their UI isn't incompetence, it's by choice, right? Or am I missing some important part of their UI that's hiding in plain sight somewhere?
- freehunter 11y ago
  I rate every single thing I watch on Netflix and I've never had their recommendations be accurate for my tastes. I have a feeling they recommend things they want you to watch, rather than things they think you'll like.
- MiddleEndian 11y ago
  As someone who prefers movies to series, their recommendations were fantastic for their DVD plan. Their streaming selection is much more limited (I found that maybe 10% of the movies I wanted to see were available) so they have to mask it. (I have no idea if their delivery service recommendations are still good because they decided my address was fake when I moved and cancelled my account)
S_A_P 11y ago
Now if the DVD vendors(hopefully a dying market) could only get the picture that when I rent a movie for my kid to play in the car, I dont want to have to skip 30 minutes of ads to start what I rented...
izzydata 11y ago
Why anyone younger than 50 still pays for cable is a mystery to me. Once the fiber internet infrastructure across the US becomes the norm it makes more sense for all shows and services to be provided over the net even if they keep a similar nonstop 24/7 airing format. You just wouldn't be downloading while it is turned off.
guelo 11y ago
> cable channels have actually sped up re-runs to get two minutes more of advertising per show. Wow. It's like a reverse TiVo, fast forward through the content to show more ads.
- sholnay 11y ago
  Yep! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0
edc117 11y ago
Wait until some of you start getting the 300gb data caps Comcast is trying to force down people's throats. They are gracefully allowing me to have my old un-metered service back for 30$ more a month. 300gb hasn't been a reasonable number for years now, and with more people leaving cable, this is clearly an attempt to monetize cord cutters further. Disgusting company.
dba7dba 11y ago
The REASON cable TV caught on initially decades ago was the promise of cutting out ads. There were NO ads on Cable TV initially.
- silveira 11y ago
  And the lesson is that eventually there will be ads on Netflix too.
  - dba7dba 11y ago
    I actually think they will eventually. It may be in the form of forcing you to watch preview like you are forced to with DVDs Or they may decide to raise monthly fee by $2 a month but you won't have to pay if you elect to allow ads. It will happen. Share holders will eventually demand it when their growth slows down.
Taylor_OD 11y ago
I'll be honest that a major reason I stopped watching cable. I use to freak out because of the frequency of ads. Intro to the show? Followed by an ad. I understand the length of ads but constantly interrupting the show is what upset me much more. I'd rather watch 7 minutes of ads at once then 7 1 minute ad segments. Now I never worry about it because of Netflix. If only I could get rid of Ads for podcasts.
jupiter90000 11y ago
As much as I dislike cable due to all the advertising, I eventually signed up because I wanted to catch some NFL games (was just doing streaming Amazon, Netflix, etc for quite a while prior, with no NFL). I initially got an HD antenna, but reception was spotty where I live and some local channels wouldn't even come in. The amount of advertising on cable is really annoying, but it is a shame that it seems somehow very difficult or impossible to actually stream a live NFL game without having a cable or satellite package of some kind. Following online 'gamecasts' that don't actually show the video of the players on the field just isn't the same. This is frustrating because it seems the NFL and television network providers have effectively made games impossible to watch live unless you go through the 'funnel' they want you to go through to watch it. Due to this, I've felt much less freedom of choice to select from what source I choose to obtain live NFL games, in comparison to movies, TV shows, etc, which I can generally end up finding on a streaming service of some kind to buy from. A plus that I had forgotten about, is the on-demand stuff with a cable package, which is similar to the other streaming services I'm used to (usually no ads, or maybe one at the start of streaming), except it's nice to not have to pay for a season of a show (like I might on Amazon) if the station the show is on was paid for as part of the cable package.
NiftyFifty 11y ago
I've been off cable (television as a service) for close to two years now. The space where TV exists for value, is our local programming and news. The national relevance is almost moot from a television source, considering I read online news more here and Leister Holtz on NBC. The net savings basically was 1/2 the Time Warner bill -> $105 -> $56. That's almost $2500 in the last two years. That's a refactor of savings into something like a boiler upgrade, or solar panels to portions of the house to extend the savings even further. Either way ... small bill, big savings.
NiftyFifty 11y ago
Second thought is the add revenue in YouTube and how Google is slowly making it impossible to view something without an intro ad to a video spot I want to watch. Sanity on product reviews, or modifications might actually drive me away from YouTube and stick to reading. I use the MVPS.org hosts file to ad-block most of the website content I review, as I pipe it into /etc/hosts and c:\%windows%\system32\drives\etc\hosts files to keep myself from the flash -> ad-virus injection methods for security reasons. However, YT is driving me crazy with 30s ad spots for like a 3 minute video and you can't walk around them no matter how you try unless you browser jack or regional change some things (right?). Anyway .... venting on Google's ad pushes myself.

125 points by rajathagasthya 11y ago

Supply and demand -> They can charge more for less.

15:38 per hour of showtime + 2 minute of re-runs in some programs. Netflix got zero, just enjoy your movie. Looks like cable companies are still in denial phase. How about ad-free versions of their channels?

raverbashing 11y ago
> How about ad-free versions of their channels? Apparently that was what cable was all about at the beginning It's hard to lure back people to an inferior product.
- draugadrotten 11y ago
  The ad-free historiy of cable also tells you the future of Netflix and other streaming services. Bait...and switch!
  - ssharp 11y ago
    When I had Hulu Plus, it was actually worse than cable because it forced you to sit through commercials. If I recorded the show on cable, I could fast forward through them at least.
    - Itaxpica 11y ago
      Hulu Plus recently added an option where you can pay a bit extra (like two bucks a month) to make it ad free. It makes it a way more pleasant experience.
      - surge 11y ago
        Only on certain shows, Hulu is still owned by networks that don't "get it".
        jerf 11y ago
        Yes, but it's a short list. At the moment. Considering that the first derivative is at least for the moment away from ads, I am cautiously optimistic. I'm hoping that once Hulu has the data on the people paying those $2/month that it will reveal that there's a statistically-significant relationship between those shows still having ads, and the $2/month customers watching less of them per capita. (My wife recently wanted us back on Hulu for Seinfeld, and it was a big factor in our decision to go back that we could turn off the ads, except in a set of shows we don't much care about.) My understanding of the economics is that $2/month is significantly more than they can hope to make in ads off me, so I'm hoping the money is enough to overcome any residual desire to advertise. (Once the ad addiction is broken, there's good reason to believe it'll stay broken. Nowadays it's easier to get people to just give you a buck rather than shave away pennies at a time through ads. Thirty years ago that wasn't true.)
  - evook 11y ago
    Which will result in going back to good ol' pirating. Again.
  - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
    I don't think this qualifies as true bait and switch.
- narrowrail 11y ago
  > > How about ad-free versions of their channels? >Apparently that was what cable was all about at the beginning I wish people would stop saying this, as it was much more about difficulty in receiving OTA signals[0]. HBO is and always has been ad-free, however. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States#First_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United...

lentil_soup 11y ago

“Consumers are being trained there are places they can go to avoid ads.” With that kind of rhetoric no wonder they're still in denial.

lsaferite 11y ago
Yeah, that comment also jumped out at me as well. I really cannot fathom their thought processes.
hwstar 11y ago
All I can say is that is good. Ads (mostly) try to sell you something you really don't need. Additionally products which advertise can be 10-35% more expensive than products which don't.
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Ugh, yeah. Tell us how you really feel about consumers Time Warner.

sageabilly 11y ago

Even among my less technologically advanced friends and family there's maybe only a handful of people who still watch shows regularly on cable television. My in-laws watch TV shows but they record them and skip over the ads. Pretty much the only thing that I know of that anyone watches on cable and still sits through ads is live sports. Watching cable networks flail around and completely fail to understand that their business model is not relevant anymore is always hilarious. Now that Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have really good original programming there's even less of an incentive to have cable.

ssharp 11y ago
I'd love to "flail around" while still having two billion in annual profits.
- surge 11y ago
  They're flailing because they're not showing growth and share holders hate that. If they show a 2% loss in subscribers or subscriber growth stagnates, that's enough for them to freak out, despite their profits.
  - solotronics 11y ago
    I work for the commercial fiber part of a cable ISP and we have been growing 25%+ for dedicated commercial fiber for a few years now but the residential customer revenue is growing at a much lower rate.
chrisseaton 11y ago
But don't the cable companies own Hulu? So they have realised the change is coming, and have already adapted.
- thefreeman 11y ago
  Except Hulu (at least used to, it may have changed recently) still shows ads to their premium subscribers, which is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

hwstar 11y ago

This is why I dumped cable in 2008. "Hour long" American TV shows are some of the shortest in the world, and are filled with redundancy as viewers "forget" where they are in the show after a stack of ads every 6-8 minutes. This degrades the quality of the programming to the point it is not worth watching. PBS programs are 50+ minutes long, and BBC are 58-59 minutes long. The local PBS station has been showing short ads in the last 10 minute segment of the hour. That's acceptable and much better than interrupting the programming. In the future Broadcasters will not need transmitters, and Cable TV won't exist. All programming will be delivered over the Internet. Instead of tuning to channel 10 on your TV, your TV connects to the channel 10 website and you can choose what you want to watch. If you pay extra, you can see shows without ads.

nlawalker 11y ago

A question for those who have done more thinking on this than I have: I see cable TV going the way of the dedicated phone line - a bundled benefit you get for a very small fee on top of the primary benefit, which will be the internet connection. The overall cost of a subscription will remain roughly the same, but the cost will be allocated to the internet connection: much like mobile carriers are now basically free voice+text across the board and the cost of the plan is based solely on the data tier you want, what I see happening in the future is that both cable TV and home phone are going to be small add-ons to your $90-$120/month internet bill. In many markets there is virtually no competition present to prevent this, and in those where there is, collusion seems to be a foregone conclusion. This seems inevitable to me given the rise in cord-cutters and, as a recent headline pointed out, the "cord-nevers". Is this what's going to happen?

macNchz 11y ago
I have Time Warner internet-only service in NYC and they are constantly trying to sell me cable as a $10/month addon to my $35 50mbit internet package. I imagine it's a pretty limited set of channels, but they're very much already using that sales tactic.
- surge 11y ago
  Right, and now you'll need a special box just to receive antenna TV over normal analog channel range which they'll rent to you for a fee (and they are notorious for providing slow boxes that take 3-5 seconds to flip to the next channel or pause for long seconds to display a menu, or need to be rebooted constantly). I had the $10 a month TV, but once I found out they were requiring the box, I just cancelled it, I was basically paying them to avoid using an antenna, but now I'll just get an antenna.
- gtk40 11y ago
  Same thing with Charter for me. They constantly try to sell me a $7/month addon that will give access to over-the-air channels through cable. I got that with a >$10 HD antenna, so I'm not sure what the value would be. (and I've barely used that...)

ucaetano 11y ago

The article makes a confusion between cable companies (Comcast, TWC, Charter, etc.) and TV/content networks (Time Warner, FOX, Viacom, etc.).

jackgavigan 11y ago

It astounds me how much US TV airtime is devoted to adverts - roughly 18 minutes out of every hour, AFAIK (plus any split-screen advertising shenanigans). In the UK, (outside the BBC, which doesn't have adverts) TV broadcasters are limited to an overall average of 7 minutes per hour, with limits of 12 minutes for any individual clock hour (which drops to 8 minutes during primetime). The BBC's Natural History unit deliberately inserts ten minutes of "disposable" content that can be cut from the program when it is broadcast on commercial channels (e.g. the 'Yellowstone People' segments that were included at the end of episodes of 'Yellowstone' when it was broadcast on the BBC, but are dropped when it's broadcast on commercial channels).

eterm 11y ago
It's more nuanced than that, those are tighter rules for ITV1, C4, C5. The other channels, including the "freeview" offerings can have more advertising: (Other services) 1.1.2(B) (a) The total amount of spot advertising in any one day must not exceed an average of nine minutes per hour (15 per cent) of broadcasting. (b) This may be increased by a further three minutes per hour (5 per cent) devoted to teleshopping spots, but this additional 5 per cent must not be used for other forms of spot advertising. This doesn't at all change your point of course, we have good tight advertising laws in the UK, including a complete ban on any product placement whatsoever. (There was talk about loosening this rule, but I haven't seen evidence that happened to any significant degree.)
- harryc2011 11y ago
  There certainly is product placement in the UK - see [1]. When watching these shows you'll see an opaque 'PP' logo flash up on the screen to let you know. [1] https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/advertising-opportunities/broadcast-advertising/product-placement https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/advertising-opportunities/broadca...
  - eterm 11y ago
    Ah, I had read they were going to bring it in, I just didn't think it had happened yet, I guess it's been longer than I remember since I've watched commercial TV.

LeonM 11y ago

My roommate called me recently that the TV was not working at home, because his girlfriend wanted to watch TV. As it turned out, we never plugged the cable into the TV, we have lived in the same house for 3 years and neither of us ever watched cable TV during that time. (we do have a cable subscription because where we live you can't get cable internet without the TV and radio part attached...) I never understood why someone would pay a ridiculous amount of money (compared to say netflix) for a cable subscription and still think it's OK to be watching to ads for 25% of the time... It's time for cable companies to accept the truth: their technology and business model is old fashioned (a free harddisk record to "pause" TV is a solution to a problem that should not exist!).

coldpie 11y ago
My girlfriend and I lived in our house for two years without even hooking up the roof antenna. Eventually I bothered to do it (not trivial, long story) because my girlfriend wanted to watch football. The idea of paying for network TV with ads is hilarious.

jimmar 11y ago

I can count on one hand the number of times my children have sat down and watched network TV. They are 4 and 7 years old. With ~15 minutes of commercials per hour, I've probably saved them from watching thousands of commercials, which I think is a good thing.

timjahn 11y ago
Same. They don't even really know what commercials are.
eitally 11y ago
Mine only ever see it in hotel rooms on vacation. The first time they experienced it, my son got very upset because we could pause it when he had to use the bathroom. The commercials irritated my wife & I so much we just turned it off entirely.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  My wife and I watch Netflix when we do watch anything (we have twin two year olds, so this is a rare luxury). For some reason or other we turned on 'regular' tv the other day and there was an NFL game on. We could not believe how many commercials there were! Also, just how insultingly unintelligent they were. I mean, who actually would want to watch these commercials!?
  - ahlatimer 11y ago
    As a football fan, the quantity of commercials is something else. CBS is particularly bad. You'll often see a touchdown, PAT, commercial break, cut back to the kickoff with the ball in mid-air which results in a touchback (so like 5 seconds worth of "content" which is really just a ball flying through the air and a guy catching it and kneeling down) followed by another round of commercials. It's insane. When I get particularly frustrated with it, I pause the game and go do something else for a good 15-20 minutes, then come back so I can at least fast forward through some of them.
jonkiddy 11y ago

surge 11y ago

Too late, I'm already done with cable.

larrik 11y ago

Even beyond airtime, the stupid ads and logos blotting out the screen during a show is becoming inexcusable. Sometimes those things can take up a third of the screen!

sizzzzlerz 11y ago
And I noticed the other day that the Discovery channel logo is now animated. Its bad enough that it squats in the corner like a dog taking a shit, now your eyes are drawn to it because its moving. Fucking bastards!

clentaminator 11y ago

Aside from ads, freedom of choice with respect to just what you watch seem to be the other key motivator. With the capability of streaming and on-demand services, why would any consumer put up with having to choose any channel with a fixed programming schedule? I almost certainly don't want to watch what you're trying to sell. No other industry seems to operate in this manner. When it comes to books, games, music, etc, consumers choose specific products. With cable TV you don't get that granularity of choice. Netflix just brings the traditional TV model into alignment with seemingly everything else. Anecdotally, cable prices seem to rise but the new channels that are sold to me as a benefit are the exact opposite of what I watch. More sports channels? Despite me having never tuned into a single one? If you're going to profile me, at least make an effort to do it well.

RHSeeger 11y ago
Don't forget that, as a non-sports-watcher, you get to pay a fee to subsidize all the sports channels you don't watch. It's not even the cost of the channels, per se... you get the extra "regional sports surcharge" on top of that.
- clentaminator 11y ago
  I never knew about that, so thanks. This is a significant argument against the traditional cable model, at least for me. Are there other genres (for want of a better term) where this applies?
  - MagicWishMonkey 11y ago
    It's around $6/month per subscriber - http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/how-much-cable-subscribers-pay-per-channel-1626/ http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/how-much-cable-subscribers-pay-...
- icefox 11y ago
  At least Verizon FIOS in the Boston area lets you opt-out of all sports channels so you are not charged this fee.

silveira 11y ago

Too little, too late.

cJ0th 11y ago

I wonder whether netflix et al will introduce ads once cable is dead and the VoD market is saturated. After all, they too want to increase their profit at any point in time.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
As long as Netflix can appease investors by attracting new membership, they won't need ads. Once membership peaks they will have to start thinking of ways to keep their QER in the black (because investors can only see one single quarter into the future). That's when we have to worry.

_RPM 11y ago

It's absurd that one can pay for premium cable TV, and still must be forced to listen and watch advertisements. I refuse to watch cable TV advertisements. HBO is the only network I can stand to watch now. I have the most basic cable package because my Internet came with it, and it also came with HBO. I get so annoyed by advertisements on TV.

cletus 11y ago

Here's another explanation: every year the TV audience gets older [1]. Advertisers notoriously chase the coveted 18-49 demographic. Younger viewers are increasingly not watching traditional TV. So, you can view Time Warner's move to cut ads in prime time as simply a way of raising prices by reducing supply (inventory). As for cable companies shoving TV packages down customers throats, well that's easy to explain. The bargaining power a cable company has with media companies is directly proportional to how many TV subscribers they have. So every Internet-only customer a cable company has marginally raises the per-customer cost of TV. This is also why Comcast wanted to merge with Time Warner. It's simply about reducing TV costs. This business model really has to die. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/tv-is-increasingly-for-old-people/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/t...

gorner 11y ago
Time Warner Inc. (the company discussed in OP's article that owns HBO, CNN etc.) has been a separate company from Time Warner Cable since 2009. TWC is the one that Comcast tried to buy (and is now trying to merge with Charter).

qjighap 11y ago

So if they are showing less commercials how are they planning to lengthen programming to fill the 30/60 minute time slots? I understand new content can be altered, but re-editing old content would be most difficult.

unoti 11y ago

Netflix has sponsored all this cutting edge research on recommendation engines, and it can predict very well how much I'm going to enjoy something. Why in the world won't it just show me a list of 4 and 5 star things? Are they afraid I'll just watch those things over the course of a month then stop subscribing? The clunkiness of their UI isn't incompetence, it's by choice, right? Or am I missing some important part of their UI that's hiding in plain sight somewhere?

freehunter 11y ago
I rate every single thing I watch on Netflix and I've never had their recommendations be accurate for my tastes. I have a feeling they recommend things they want you to watch, rather than things they think you'll like.
MiddleEndian 11y ago
As someone who prefers movies to series, their recommendations were fantastic for their DVD plan. Their streaming selection is much more limited (I found that maybe 10% of the movies I wanted to see were available) so they have to mask it. (I have no idea if their delivery service recommendations are still good because they decided my address was fake when I moved and cancelled my account)

S_A_P 11y ago

Now if the DVD vendors(hopefully a dying market) could only get the picture that when I rent a movie for my kid to play in the car, I dont want to have to skip 30 minutes of ads to start what I rented...

izzydata 11y ago

Why anyone younger than 50 still pays for cable is a mystery to me. Once the fiber internet infrastructure across the US becomes the norm it makes more sense for all shows and services to be provided over the net even if they keep a similar nonstop 24/7 airing format. You just wouldn't be downloading while it is turned off.

guelo 11y ago

> cable channels have actually sped up re-runs to get two minutes more of advertising per show. Wow. It's like a reverse TiVo, fast forward through the content to show more ads.

sholnay 11y ago
Yep! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0

edc117 11y ago

Wait until some of you start getting the 300gb data caps Comcast is trying to force down people's throats. They are gracefully allowing me to have my old un-metered service back for 30$ more a month. 300gb hasn't been a reasonable number for years now, and with more people leaving cable, this is clearly an attempt to monetize cord cutters further. Disgusting company.

dba7dba 11y ago

The REASON cable TV caught on initially decades ago was the promise of cutting out ads. There were NO ads on Cable TV initially.

silveira 11y ago
And the lesson is that eventually there will be ads on Netflix too.
- dba7dba 11y ago
  I actually think they will eventually. It may be in the form of forcing you to watch preview like you are forced to with DVDs Or they may decide to raise monthly fee by $2 a month but you won't have to pay if you elect to allow ads. It will happen. Share holders will eventually demand it when their growth slows down.

Taylor_OD 11y ago

I'll be honest that a major reason I stopped watching cable. I use to freak out because of the frequency of ads. Intro to the show? Followed by an ad. I understand the length of ads but constantly interrupting the show is what upset me much more. I'd rather watch 7 minutes of ads at once then 7 1 minute ad segments. Now I never worry about it because of Netflix. If only I could get rid of Ads for podcasts.

jupiter90000 11y ago

As much as I dislike cable due to all the advertising, I eventually signed up because I wanted to catch some NFL games (was just doing streaming Amazon, Netflix, etc for quite a while prior, with no NFL). I initially got an HD antenna, but reception was spotty where I live and some local channels wouldn't even come in. The amount of advertising on cable is really annoying, but it is a shame that it seems somehow very difficult or impossible to actually stream a live NFL game without having a cable or satellite package of some kind. Following online 'gamecasts' that don't actually show the video of the players on the field just isn't the same. This is frustrating because it seems the NFL and television network providers have effectively made games impossible to watch live unless you go through the 'funnel' they want you to go through to watch it. Due to this, I've felt much less freedom of choice to select from what source I choose to obtain live NFL games, in comparison to movies, TV shows, etc, which I can generally end up finding on a streaming service of some kind to buy from. A plus that I had forgotten about, is the on-demand stuff with a cable package, which is similar to the other streaming services I'm used to (usually no ads, or maybe one at the start of streaming), except it's nice to not have to pay for a season of a show (like I might on Amazon) if the station the show is on was paid for as part of the cable package.

NiftyFifty 11y ago

I've been off cable (television as a service) for close to two years now. The space where TV exists for value, is our local programming and news. The national relevance is almost moot from a television source, considering I read online news more here and Leister Holtz on NBC. The net savings basically was 1/2 the Time Warner bill -> $105 -> $56. That's almost $2500 in the last two years. That's a refactor of savings into something like a boiler upgrade, or solar panels to portions of the house to extend the savings even further. Either way ... small bill, big savings.

NiftyFifty 11y ago

Second thought is the add revenue in YouTube and how Google is slowly making it impossible to view something without an intro ad to a video spot I want to watch. Sanity on product reviews, or modifications might actually drive me away from YouTube and stick to reading. I use the MVPS.org hosts file to ad-block most of the website content I review, as I pipe it into /etc/hosts and c:\%windows%\system32\drives\etc\hosts files to keep myself from the flash -> ad-virus injection methods for security reasons. However, YT is driving me crazy with 30s ad spots for like a 3 minute video and you can't walk around them no matter how you try unless you browser jack or regional change some things (right?). Anyway .... venting on Google's ad pushes myself.