Time Warner Dumps CBS in Major Markets

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Major cable providers and broadcast TV are at odds because the market place has become very fragmented. When you look at what advertisers pay money for - repeated exposure to target audiences - its easy to see the transformation from radio advertising in the 1950's to 2013. At one end of the spectrum, you were able to capture a large portion of the population in a single, Sunday radio show. Today, you only reach a sliver of the market place for a fraction of the time. Think of Tivo, DVR, and every other method to circumvent advertising and make TV schedules customizable to the individual.

Now that you dilluted the amount of money thats coming through advertising (dollars wise, you may not have, but when you account for inflation and market growth, you have) the providers and networks have to change their business models.

Now when you see what the providers have to do, to offer packages, that will command a reasonable price from the consumer - it becomes eye opening. If they can charge $40 for X amount of channels and CBS starts demanding $6 per viewer, instead of $4 - you can see that the provider either has to get the consumer to accept a $2 price increase or all of the other channels to accept less money. Except, all of the other channels are making the same power play to increase their prices. You have a handful of large players, Viacom, Disney, etc., etc. that are attempting to establish price increases across their 20 channels - but in reality, its the non broadcast providers that are growing at this point.

Long story short, it's a shit show and its been one in the making for years. In the New York market, there was a hold out between Cablevision and YES network over the same thing, probably 10 years ago at this point. As a population dominated by Yankee fans out here, it was a tough pill for Cablevision to swallow to piss off its customers, but at the end of the day, they couldn't set the precedent of allowing a station to set a large increase without drastically cutting their operating expenses/altering their business model or having that same consumer accept a price increase for a service they already believe is overpriced.

Unfortunately I've seen this coming for years. A family member is in cable TV sees and I've urged him at every chance to get out of the industry, because its a dying market. A stint in internet advertising sales, proved that sales there are different from newspaper sales where he once was to cable sales where he's been the last twenty years.
 
While I agree with you on the aforementioned costs of cable television, and the emerging markets, its not as dying as one thinks.

Kind of funny though as CBS has them by the balls. They have the most watched television. Football season is around the corner.

You telling me all the TWC customer's aren't going to pissed in Dallas that they can't watch NCIS?
 
I haven't had cable for close to a year. Netflix and Internet streaming has completely held me over.
 
They have done it in my area with some of the major networks. Cable sucks and is overpriced. I got rid of cable a month ago. Being summer I only kind of miss it. In the winter I will miss it more. I need to explore streaming options.
Atleast with CBS you can pull it in with an antenna if you are close enough.
I wish I could get ABC but the station is too far for me.
 
While I agree with you on the aforementioned costs of cable television, and the emerging markets, its not as dying as one thinks.

Kind of funny though as CBS has them by the balls. They have the most watched television. Football season is around the corner.

You telling me all the TWC customer's aren't going to pissed in Dallas that they can't watch NCIS?

The market really is dying that much. I wasn't being facetious. Verizon stopped their Fios build outs in NJ because they were losing so much money on cable and telephony services.

Think of what has changed. Think of the trend of cable companies that were diversifying and swallowing operations like telephony. Now they're in a rush to spin all those other properties off and just become a cable company again.

While I agree there's still a market for cable and advertising, the problem is that the industries are shifting and these massive cable providers are seeing the money rotate away from them. They're used to markets that are cornered and have no competition. Think of what would happen if they deregulated utilities and there was actually a catalyst for competition in the market place. Same idea.
 
They have done it in my area with some of the major networks. Cable sucks and is overpriced. I got rid of cable a month ago. Being summer I only kind of miss it. In the winter I will miss it more. I need to explore streaming options.
Atleast with CBS you can pull it in with an antenna if you are close enough.
I wish I could get ABC but the station is too far for me.

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I only have cable because it was only $1-$2 more than if I were to just have home phone and internet....otherwise I'd just stick to antenna and Hulu/Netflix.
 
I wish that having netflix/ hulu would let you get current discovery, history, and a&e shows. Not that its great programming but sometimes it decent to watch.
 
This is all TIme Warner. They are the only ones who get in these "measuring contests". Look back, other providers have had these issues, but TW is always having it out with someone.

I actually don't watch CBS. I prefer History, Discovery, and Nat Geo. I also realize I am a small segment of the audience that prefers intelligent television.
 
I kind of stopped watching History due to the reality shows...but I do enjoy the actual history programs they sometimes show. One channel that I never seen but the programming(on TV Guide) looked interesting was Smithsonian channel. Come to think of it, I'd be extremely satisfied if they had an "Educational TV Package". I'll watch broadcast channels if a show I like is on there, but for that you can simply use antenna.
 
H2 > history these days anyway. its kinda gone the way of mtv. healtiy on main, 2 has the former content
 
Only reason I'd be worried about losing CBS is the NFL. Albeit, most cowboys games are on fox, so it doesn't hurt that bad, but what if I want to watch the other game?
 
I wish that having netflix/ hulu would let you get current discovery, history, and a&e shows. Not that its great programming but sometimes it decent to watch.

Check out coke and popcorn.ch that I posted above. This should have most of the shows you're looking for. Breaking Bad, etc. Click the "TV Shows" tab.
 
NOT happy about this shenanigry. Currently looking to find a torrent of this evenings episode of Dexter that i was unable to watch :angry:
 
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