4 ms·

I don't have YouTube Tv but your comment almost made me dry heave a little realizing we are back at square one with cable tv and bundling channels users don't w

by 14 5y ago

I don't have YouTube Tv but your comment almost made me dry heave a little realizing we are back at square one with cable tv and bundling channels users don't want and forcing them to pay for stuff. I haven't had cable tv in years but seldom don't miss a show I want to watch. It is mostly all online if you know where to search. Also Canadian so no one comes knocking on my door for downloading.

taurath 5y ago
Sports is the anchor by which unbundling won’t happen for a long time, especially with linear TV. This is partially because it benefits the conglomerates business models to have as many channels and content streams as possible to sell ad time on, and partially because for sports teams they can functionally name their price. In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). Why would a brand new team with no established fan base want to not be in front of as many eyeballs as they can? Because they earn more money when someone pays them to put them behind a cable company. At no point does this “competition”, which it isn’t, benefit consumers. We used to regulate things like this.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  I've not looked into how the US cable market is doing, but here in Denmark it feels like we're very close to cable/bundling snapping. The cable companies are forced to raise prices each year, mostly because of sports and people are cancelling in droves. In 2015 93% of Danes had cable, in 2019 less than 80% had cable and during 2020 - 2022 the largest provider lost at least 250.000 subscribers, pushing them well below 1 million subscribers. Many others have downgrade their subscription to the bundles that doesn't include sports channels. At some point the remaining subscribers can't pay the cost of the ridiculous fees charged for the major sporting events. When that happens the fees must come down, or the sporting companies must find a different solution. Honestly a great solution for the major sports, like football in Europe, would be to great something like what the MLB did in the US. I know a lot of football fans who'd love to get a subscription for all the Champions League games. Just a fixed price and then watch any game you like. Why pay for Formula 1, hockey or even the Bundesliga, if you only care about the Danish Superliga and Champions League.
  - taurath 5y ago
    In the US American football only recently became available on streaming - it is currently $450 or $500 per season. You can go to a bar every week and have several drinks and a meal for that money. It’s a little crazy.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      $500 a year is still at around half the price of cable tv where I live, if you want any sport, largest cable package would be $1213 per year. So you could get all the games you wanted to see, rather than just the ones the TV stations decided to buy, and still have money left over to subscribe to a few streaming services. Edit: Something something, cost of living. $500 is 3300DKK, which would let you go to a bar, have a meal and four or five beers only seven times.
      - Ar-Curunir 5y ago
        A meal and 5 beers cost $70 in Denmark? That's expensive.
        mrweasel 5y ago
        Sorry, haven't been out for a while, I was wrong about the price of beer. It has gone up. The five beers (0.5L) is $43.95, leaving $26 that's going to be a rather cheap meal, you're certainly not eating at the bar on game day at that point. You could get ribs or a burger at a restaurant, but you're a little short if you want steak.... And you don't exactly have money for a drink with your meal.
        matwood 5y ago
        All the Scandinavian countries are expensive (when converting from USD), especially for alcohol.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Where is this streaming option available for $500? I do not see it on nfl.com If it is subject to blackouts, it does not count. https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/ https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/
- sofixa 5y ago
  Regarding sports, there are companies such as DAZN and Amazon which break the bundling. They get the rights for a certain sport/league in a country, and if you want to watch, you pay only for that, directly.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  In the Chicago area I just about lost my crud with the new "Marquee Sports Network". It's a $7 a month price hike that every subscriber in the area has to suffer on every single cable provider because the Cubs struck a deal with Sinclair to create the channel. I don't understand how it's legal. Imagine if Netflix could force everyone in a geographic area to subscribe or lose the ability to stream all non-Netflix stuff. It wouldn't even make sense, but this is what happened here. I think we should kick the Cubs out of Chicago for pulling a stunt like this during a pandemic when most people are barely able to pay their existing bills. Sports teams are absolute vampires that abuse the local population in the name of obscene profits.
  - owlninja 5y ago
    Sinclair also ruined us here in DFW. Suddenly the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Stars are only available on Bally's network which the big streamers do not carry. We used to be able to watch all games on the regional Fox Sports network which was a huge selling point for me switching to streaming. Now the word is Bally's expects to release their own app and subscription service in like 2023...sigh...
- brewdad 5y ago
  >> In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). It's actually worse than that. I've looked into it, because I'd like to watch Mariners and Kraken games in Portland (blacked out here too). Root Sportsis only available through cable providers and FuboTV or Directv Stream. No other streaming services offer it and there is no way to subscribe directly. It's a mess, so I generally don't watch the games or pirate them.
technofiend 5y ago
Right? I used to just turn on YouTube TV for hurricane season for local coverage in case of a power outage. It's far easier to keep a cell phone charged than deal with a digital antenna (which might have been lost to high winds anyway) and relatively power hungry TV just to see what's going on. Then my wife started using the app too so I can't easily turn it off. Back when Big Ugly Dishes were a thing it was far cheaper to piecemeal subscribe to your desired packages. Then DirecTV came along and forced the cable tv model on their subscribers and lobbied hard for laws that killed BUDs. I remember doing the math at the time and DirecTV was about double the price of a BUD. Now we're back to adhoc subscription if you want to use a bunch of disparate apps and websites, so in one way it could be cheaper. But each streaming site charges retail prices to consumers so in aggregate it ends up costing as much or more than in the cable model. Even so the forced subsidy of ESPN in particular has always been a deeply aggravating thing for me. Sort of like agreeing to split lunch evenly and then discovering after the fact everyone's having sandwiches except the one guy who ordered steak.
- hx833001 5y ago
  Check for local news apps/websites and also national network news apps if they own your local station. Some provide access year round, and your local stations will almost certainly have live storm coverage. I can watch multiple local stations during a storm for free on Apple TV
causi 5y ago
Also Canadian so no one comes knocking on my door for downloading. Sure about that? https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trolls-suing-thousands-of-canadians-for-file-sharing https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trol...
- 14 5y ago
  I have heard this but last I heard, not sure a source or time to search right now, that the courts have been favoring our side and don't really want the average Canadian being sued. They are going after the commercial entities reselling these services like streaming site operators. The thing is to download only which sucks because it is not nice to be a leech. At this point in time very few people worry about it. Back in the day I used to download hundreds of GB per month in video games movies and tv shows. Now I will find the odd movie I never had a chance to watch.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
I hate bundling. I have been paying my cable company money for football and Formula one. I don't watch that stuff. How about we just pay for the things we use? Imagine if a restaurant put a bottle of wine on your bill even though you don't like wine.

by 14 5y ago

taurath 5y ago

Sports is the anchor by which unbundling won’t happen for a long time, especially with linear TV. This is partially because it benefits the conglomerates business models to have as many channels and content streams as possible to sell ad time on, and partially because for sports teams they can functionally name their price. In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). Why would a brand new team with no established fan base want to not be in front of as many eyeballs as they can? Because they earn more money when someone pays them to put them behind a cable company. At no point does this “competition”, which it isn’t, benefit consumers. We used to regulate things like this.

mrweasel 5y ago
I've not looked into how the US cable market is doing, but here in Denmark it feels like we're very close to cable/bundling snapping. The cable companies are forced to raise prices each year, mostly because of sports and people are cancelling in droves. In 2015 93% of Danes had cable, in 2019 less than 80% had cable and during 2020 - 2022 the largest provider lost at least 250.000 subscribers, pushing them well below 1 million subscribers. Many others have downgrade their subscription to the bundles that doesn't include sports channels. At some point the remaining subscribers can't pay the cost of the ridiculous fees charged for the major sporting events. When that happens the fees must come down, or the sporting companies must find a different solution. Honestly a great solution for the major sports, like football in Europe, would be to great something like what the MLB did in the US. I know a lot of football fans who'd love to get a subscription for all the Champions League games. Just a fixed price and then watch any game you like. Why pay for Formula 1, hockey or even the Bundesliga, if you only care about the Danish Superliga and Champions League.
- taurath 5y ago
  In the US American football only recently became available on streaming - it is currently $450 or $500 per season. You can go to a bar every week and have several drinks and a meal for that money. It’s a little crazy.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    $500 a year is still at around half the price of cable tv where I live, if you want any sport, largest cable package would be $1213 per year. So you could get all the games you wanted to see, rather than just the ones the TV stations decided to buy, and still have money left over to subscribe to a few streaming services. Edit: Something something, cost of living. $500 is 3300DKK, which would let you go to a bar, have a meal and four or five beers only seven times.
    - Ar-Curunir 5y ago
      A meal and 5 beers cost $70 in Denmark? That's expensive.
      - mrweasel 5y ago
        Sorry, haven't been out for a while, I was wrong about the price of beer. It has gone up. The five beers (0.5L) is $43.95, leaving $26 that's going to be a rather cheap meal, you're certainly not eating at the bar on game day at that point. You could get ribs or a burger at a restaurant, but you're a little short if you want steak.... And you don't exactly have money for a drink with your meal.
      - matwood 5y ago
        All the Scandinavian countries are expensive (when converting from USD), especially for alcohol.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Where is this streaming option available for $500? I do not see it on nfl.com If it is subject to blackouts, it does not count. https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/ https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/
sofixa 5y ago
Regarding sports, there are companies such as DAZN and Amazon which break the bundling. They get the rights for a certain sport/league in a country, and if you want to watch, you pay only for that, directly.
ocdtrekkie 5y ago
In the Chicago area I just about lost my crud with the new "Marquee Sports Network". It's a $7 a month price hike that every subscriber in the area has to suffer on every single cable provider because the Cubs struck a deal with Sinclair to create the channel. I don't understand how it's legal. Imagine if Netflix could force everyone in a geographic area to subscribe or lose the ability to stream all non-Netflix stuff. It wouldn't even make sense, but this is what happened here. I think we should kick the Cubs out of Chicago for pulling a stunt like this during a pandemic when most people are barely able to pay their existing bills. Sports teams are absolute vampires that abuse the local population in the name of obscene profits.
- owlninja 5y ago
  Sinclair also ruined us here in DFW. Suddenly the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Stars are only available on Bally's network which the big streamers do not carry. We used to be able to watch all games on the regional Fox Sports network which was a huge selling point for me switching to streaming. Now the word is Bally's expects to release their own app and subscription service in like 2023...sigh...
brewdad 5y ago
>> In seattle, the brand new hockey team is only available through Root Sports, a smallish production company owned by Warner media and the baseball team. You can only watch the new hockey team if you subscribe to a cable package or online cable package (YouTube tv etc). It's actually worse than that. I've looked into it, because I'd like to watch Mariners and Kraken games in Portland (blacked out here too). Root Sportsis only available through cable providers and FuboTV or Directv Stream. No other streaming services offer it and there is no way to subscribe directly. It's a mess, so I generally don't watch the games or pirate them.

technofiend 5y ago

Right? I used to just turn on YouTube TV for hurricane season for local coverage in case of a power outage. It's far easier to keep a cell phone charged than deal with a digital antenna (which might have been lost to high winds anyway) and relatively power hungry TV just to see what's going on. Then my wife started using the app too so I can't easily turn it off. Back when Big Ugly Dishes were a thing it was far cheaper to piecemeal subscribe to your desired packages. Then DirecTV came along and forced the cable tv model on their subscribers and lobbied hard for laws that killed BUDs. I remember doing the math at the time and DirecTV was about double the price of a BUD. Now we're back to adhoc subscription if you want to use a bunch of disparate apps and websites, so in one way it could be cheaper. But each streaming site charges retail prices to consumers so in aggregate it ends up costing as much or more than in the cable model. Even so the forced subsidy of ESPN in particular has always been a deeply aggravating thing for me. Sort of like agreeing to split lunch evenly and then discovering after the fact everyone's having sandwiches except the one guy who ordered steak.

hx833001 5y ago
Check for local news apps/websites and also national network news apps if they own your local station. Some provide access year round, and your local stations will almost certainly have live storm coverage. I can watch multiple local stations during a storm for free on Apple TV

causi 5y ago

Also Canadian so no one comes knocking on my door for downloading. Sure about that? https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trolls-suing-thousands-of-canadians-for-file-sharing https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/12443/copyright-trol...

14 5y ago
I have heard this but last I heard, not sure a source or time to search right now, that the courts have been favoring our side and don't really want the average Canadian being sued. They are going after the commercial entities reselling these services like streaming site operators. The thing is to download only which sucks because it is not nice to be a leech. At this point in time very few people worry about it. Back in the day I used to download hundreds of GB per month in video games movies and tv shows. Now I will find the odd movie I never had a chance to watch.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

I hate bundling. I have been paying my cable company money for football and Formula one. I don't watch that stuff. How about we just pay for the things we use? Imagine if a restaurant put a bottle of wine on your bill even though you don't like wine.