Bulletin E-Edition:
Cutting the cord
With the cost of cable increasing over the years, consumers here and nationwide are taking advantage of the other — sometimes free — ways to watch their favorite TV shows
By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Published: May 03. 2009 4:00AM PST
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Marisa Boss, a Bend mom, recently canceled her family’s cable television service. At first, she cut out the premium content, such as Home Box Office. But soon after, even though she was a fan of network shows such as “Survivor” and “The Office,” she cut the cord entirely.
But it’s not as if she said goodbye. Thanks to the Internet, she can watch many of her favorite network and cable shows for free, and even prevent her 9-year-old daughter, Allyson, from spending too much time in front of the TV, she said.
“At first, it was price. We were just being proactive, cutting out expenses we thought weren’t necessary,” Boss said. “But we started realizing we could watch all that stuff online, even if we had to wait a day to watch it. We said, ‘Why do we need it?’”
Increasingly, television shows and movies are becoming available online, presenting cable and satellite providers with competition that serves up content on demand.
Forrester Research released a report in January noting that while cable and satellite providers reach roughly 100 million homes in the U.S., computer-based television viewing is growing, driven largely by adults ages 18 to 34 who like to watch content when and where they choose.
“As audiences continue to migrate to a lifestyle of portability, driven by the transition to laptops and wireless networks, the cord in the living room becomes a heavier burden,” the report said.
The ABC network announced Thursday it became a partner in Hulu.com and begin streaming its shows and movies from the popular Internet site, joining NBC and Fox in the online venture that is free for viewers.
The four major broadcast networks already stream shows from their own Web sites, as do many other cable networks. The shows are typically posted after they are broadcast, generally the following day. This doesn’t bother Boss, who feels it’s not unreasonable to wait a day to watch her favorite shows.
A variety of other video sites exists online, including YouTube.com, Joost.com and Fancast.com, that offer either network and cable television content, movies or user-generated videos.
So as cable and satellite television rates continue to rise, there are signs some people are beginning to cut back their cable service.
In January, the Federal Communications Commission reported that the average national price in 2008 for expanded basic cable television service was $49.65, an increase of 122 percent from the 1995 price of $22.35. In comparison, the nation’s Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, rose 38.4 percent during the same period.
Another study released in April by the research firm Centris listed the average monthly U.S. cable television bill, which includes subscriptions of premium content, rose 7.5 percent in 2008 to $71.
BendBroadband charges a monthly rate of $17.95 for its basic service. Additional tiers cost $29.50, $43.75 and $49.75.
On Thursday, Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable television subscriber, reported 597,000 fewer basic video subscribers for the first quarter of 2009 compared with the same quarter a year ago, a drop of 2 percent.
Time Warner Cable, based in Stamford, Conn., and the nation’s second-largest cable provider, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, reported Wednesday that it lost 201,000 cable video subscribers in the first quarter of 2009 when compared with the same period a year ago, also a decline of 2 percent.
However, both providers showed gains in the number of high-speed Internet and digital video subscriptions.
John Farwell, vice president of business operations for BendBroadband, said in a statement to The Bulletin that although the company’s cable television subscribers are down over the past year, it’s more likely due to the region’s struggling economy than a mass migration online.
Farwell points out that much of the award-winning premium content developed by HBO and Showtime is only available through television, at least until it is issued to DVD. Farwell believes the vast majority of consumers still want to watch television from the comfort of the couch, then go online to view additional content or interact with related Web sites.
“Studies find that for most people the online viewing is additive, not a complete substitution for TV,” wrote Farwell. “Based on my own informal analysis, the people that get all of their content online are primarily people that don’t watch television — on an actual TV — in the first place.”
It’s disingenuous to say it’s possible to watch television shows or movies online for free, as a viewer first needs a high-speed Internet connection. Both BendBroadband and Qwest offer high-speed Internet connections in Bend and other select parts of Central Oregon for promotional rates as low as $19.95 and $14.99, respectively.
And a viewer needs a computer, obviously. But increasingly, people also are turning their televisions into computer monitors, enabling them to watch Internet content on the big screen from the comfort of their couch.
Lawrence Fisher, owner of Home System Solutions in Bend, which specializes in installing audio/video entertainment systems for homes, said many newer televisions either have the same video jacks that computers do or have ethernet jacks that enable homeowners to plug the Internet straight into their televisions.
Fisher helps clients sort through the many ways to connect to the Internet to watch content. Besides visiting Web sites, people also can purchase and download movies and television shows from Apple’s iTunes store, Fisher said. Or they can use a Microsoft Xbox 360 game console, a TiVo digital video recorder or a Samsung Blu-ray disc player to instantly stream movies and television shows through Netflix straight to their television, though that service costs extra.
Though Netflix’s primary business is mailing DVDs to its customers, it also streams content to its subscribers through the Internet — either to a computer or to one of the previously mentioned devices — as part of its membership fees, which start at $8.99 per month.
“The future of content is going away from the cable box to just a computer or right into the back of the TV,” Fisher said.
Not only that, but certain smart phones, such as Apple’s iPhone, also are able to stream select video content. NBC, in particular, has formatted several of its shows, including “The Office,” for viewing on an iPhone.
Andrew Moore can be reached at 541-617-7820 or amoore@bendbulletin.com.
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