5 ms·

The difference is simple: NBC was (and still is) free to watch if you have a television and an antenna.

by mivade 5y ago

lotsofpulp 5y ago
And if you lived in a location close enough to a city to receive the airwaves. I do not see what that has to do with it, but you can swap out NBC for a non broadcast media owner like Comedy Central. Point is content is more accessible and cheaper than it has ever been in history, and that is partially due to the elimination of middlemen like cable/satellite TV distributors. But media is always going to have an owner, who is always going to be able to license it to whoever they want at whatever cost they want.
pvg 5y ago
HBO wasn't and you needed to pay to watch an HBO show. There's really not much difference between and premium channel cable offering and these services, at least, it's a lot more similar and closer in time than studio-owned movie theatres.
dcolkitt 5y ago
Broadcast NBC was only "free" in the strictest sense. Every hour of content requires the viewer to sit through 22 minutes of mind-numbing commercials. At a labor value of $50/hour, watching ten hours of content a week imposes an economic cost on the viewer of $825/month. By comparison subscribing to all the major streaming platforms would cost about $100/month. Let's not even get into issues of higher quality content and huge on-demand libraries. It's pretty clear ad-free streaming subscription is a massive improvement for consumers over "free" broadcast TV.
- athenot 5y ago
  The heavy load of advertisements is a point well made, however the cost is a bit more nuanced. By your calculation, it would cost $2,166/month (+price of service) to just watch that amount TV. This is an opportunity cost but only if you have the stamina to be doing billable work during all that time instead of relaxing.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The biggest opportunity cost was having to schedule a specific time to watch something or not being able to pause and watch later or not being able to watch while waiting for your flight to board.
- thakoppno 5y ago
  > sit through 22 minutes of mind-numbing commercials Commercial detection and skipping has worked well for me via MythTV for nearly twenty years at this point. Seems like there’s a free startup idea in there somewhere. $100 worth of equipment and a webapp and now your parents can watch network TV, local news, sports, and weather without ads.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    How can you skip the commercial in a live broadcast?
    - woobar 5y ago
      Pause -> get a snack/bathroom break -> fast forward.
    - thakoppno 5y ago
      You can’t skip live without a time machine. You can disable the audio and replace the video. Alternatively, you start the game 22 minutes / hour late. It’s all about trade-offs but attention is being under-valued imho.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- adrianmonk 5y ago
  The important implication of broadcast TV being "free" isn't that there's zero cost. It's that there's no subscription. Subscriptions mean you have to pay a certain minimum amount, even if you want to watch just one episode of something. That's a much bigger burden than changing the channel. Yes, in theory you can carefully manage things and cancel as soon as you've watched what you wanted, but in practice that effort is a cost too (like watching a commercial is a cost).
chrisseaton 5y ago
'free to watch' as long as you like commercials.
- asdff 5y ago
  Advertising is a thing in netflix productions too, you know. Really takes you out of Stranger Things when you see them set down a coke can with the label perfectly aligned to the camera.
  - NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
    Product placement.

The difference is simple: NBC was (and still is) free to watch if you have a television and an antenna.

by mivade 5y ago

The difference is simple: NBC was (and still is) free to watch if you have a television and an antenna.

And if you lived in a location close enough to a city to receive the airwaves. I do not see what that has to do with it, but you can swap out NBC for a non broadcast media owner like Comedy Central. Point is content is more accessible and cheaper than it has ever been in history, and that is partially due to the elimination of middlemen like cable/satellite TV distributors. But media is always going to have an owner, who is always going to be able to license it to whoever they want at whatever cost they want.

pvg 5y ago

HBO wasn't and you needed to pay to watch an HBO show. There's really not much difference between and premium channel cable offering and these services, at least, it's a lot more similar and closer in time than studio-owned movie theatres.

dcolkitt 5y ago

Broadcast NBC was only "free" in the strictest sense. Every hour of content requires the viewer to sit through 22 minutes of mind-numbing commercials. At a labor value of $50/hour, watching ten hours of content a week imposes an economic cost on the viewer of $825/month. By comparison subscribing to all the major streaming platforms would cost about $100/month. Let's not even get into issues of higher quality content and huge on-demand libraries. It's pretty clear ad-free streaming subscription is a massive improvement for consumers over "free" broadcast TV.

athenot 5y ago
The heavy load of advertisements is a point well made, however the cost is a bit more nuanced. By your calculation, it would cost $2,166/month (+price of service) to just watch that amount TV. This is an opportunity cost but only if you have the stamina to be doing billable work during all that time instead of relaxing.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The biggest opportunity cost was having to schedule a specific time to watch something or not being able to pause and watch later or not being able to watch while waiting for your flight to board.
thakoppno 5y ago
> sit through 22 minutes of mind-numbing commercials Commercial detection and skipping has worked well for me via MythTV for nearly twenty years at this point. Seems like there’s a free startup idea in there somewhere. $100 worth of equipment and a webapp and now your parents can watch network TV, local news, sports, and weather without ads.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  How can you skip the commercial in a live broadcast?
  - woobar 5y ago
    Pause -> get a snack/bathroom break -> fast forward.
  - thakoppno 5y ago
    You can’t skip live without a time machine. You can disable the audio and replace the video. Alternatively, you start the game 22 minutes / hour late. It’s all about trade-offs but attention is being under-valued imho.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
adrianmonk 5y ago
The important implication of broadcast TV being "free" isn't that there's zero cost. It's that there's no subscription. Subscriptions mean you have to pay a certain minimum amount, even if you want to watch just one episode of something. That's a much bigger burden than changing the channel. Yes, in theory you can carefully manage things and cancel as soon as you've watched what you wanted, but in practice that effort is a cost too (like watching a commercial is a cost).

chrisseaton 5y ago

'free to watch' as long as you like commercials.

asdff 5y ago
Advertising is a thing in netflix productions too, you know. Really takes you out of Stranger Things when you see them set down a coke can with the label perfectly aligned to the camera.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  Product placement.