Canceling your cable subscription can require sacrifices, but sometimes the cord-cutting viewing experience is actually better than cable.

Amazon Instant is one of the best ways for cable-cutters to catch up on TV shows.

(Credit: Matthew Moskovciak/CNET)

When people ask me if they should “cut the cord” and cancel their cable subscription, I tend to focus on negatives. You’re going to miss a lot of sports, reality TV, and live TV events — even if you get free, over-the-air TV using an antenna.

That’s all true, but it’s easy to forget that sometimes the cord-cutting experience is just flat-out better than having cable. I was reminded of this after reading a quote by former NBC executive Jeff Gaspin at the end of Bill Carter’s recent story about declining TV ratings in The New York Times:

Mr. Gaspin said that this year he and his 13-year-old son decided to try out the AMC series “The Walking Dead.” Hooked by the first two episodes, they set aside an hour at 9 each night to watch the first two years, hour by hour, which Mr. Gaspin had collected through every means available — some episodes from Netflix, some from iTunes, some recorded on the family DVR.”We learned a new behavior,” Mr. Gaspin said. Finally they caught up to this season’s finale.

“We watched that live,” he said. “It was not nearly as good. The commercials broke the tension. We had watched the other episodes with blankets over our heads. I hate to say this to the AMC executives and everybody else in the business, but I will never watch ‘Walking Dead’ live again.”

That’s exactly the same experience I’ve had as a cord-cutter. The 100 percent commercial-free experience (which you get on Netflix, Amazon Instant, and iTunes) particularly lends itself to high-quality cable shows like “Mad Men,” which I can’t imagine watching with commercial breaks. Sure, I’ll end up spending around $37 to watch the series via Amazon Instant in HD over its two-and-a-half-month run, but it’s well worth it, considering I’m still saving on cable and getting a better experience. Not to mention the fact that I own the shows and can re-watch them whenever I’d like.

And while cable subscribers can cut commercials out by watching shows recorded on your DVR (which I do for over-the-air TV shows that I record on my TiVo), in my experience it’s undeniably better to watch without the interruption of having to fire through commercials every 10 minutes or so..

St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) April 30, 2012

Antennas Direct, the leader in over-the-air television antenna technology, and DSI Systems, the nation’s largest distributor of satellite and consumer electronic equipment, announce a strategic partnership to distribute over-the-air television antennas to retailers and integrators across the United States.

“We’re excited that our distribution agreement with DSI Systems will give dealers more reliable and compact choices for over-the-air television as customers migrate back to antennas as a source.” Richard Schneider, president of Antennas Direct, said. “This new relationship gives us the opportunity to make our antennas available to a diverse installer channel as well.”

Antennas Direct has been the primary driving force for innovation in the category by reinventing the antenna for the digital era. Antennas Direct has invested major resources into the discovery and implementation of new antenna designs for efficient digital reception. With millions of antennas sold, the company provides an attractive, cost-effective solution for free local television. Founded in 2003, the firm is a multiple year Inc. 500 Fastest-Growing Company Honoree and member of the Future of TV Coalition.

DSI Systems serves a national dealer network of over 25,000 retail storefronts and custom integrators, and the sales force is dedicated to serving dealers with quality customer service and convenience. This is accomplished through individualized service, strong product offerings, a fast and efficient overnight delivery system and instant access to information via the DSI web site.

According to The NPD Group, a leading market research company, the average pay-TV subscription for basic pay-TV service and premium-TV channels in the U.S. reached $86 in 2011. As TV program licensing fees have risen, pay TV monthly rates have also grown an average of 6 percent per year, even as consumer household income has remained essentially flat. If nothing changes, NPD expects the average pay-TV bill to reach $123 by the year 2015 and $200 by 2020.

“As pay-TV costs rise and consumers’ spending power stays flat, the traditional affiliate-fee business model for pay-TV companies appears to be unsustainable in the long term,” said Keith Nissen, research director for The NPD Group. “Much needed structural changes to the pay-TV industry will not happen quickly or easily; however, the emerging competition between S-VOD and premium-TV suppliers might be the spark that ignites the necessary business-model transformation of the pay-TV industry.”

Based on the latest information from NPD’s “Entertainment Trends in America” report, pay-TV cord cutters reported cancelling their subscriptions primarily because of economic considerations; however, they are still accessing TV programming from free-to-air broadcast, free Internet TV, as well as via lower-priced subscription video-on-demand (S-VOD) services, like Netflix.

The Amazon Instant Video app will allow you to stream Television shows and movies via the Internet to your PlayStation3. A video library of over 120,000 streaming TV shows and movies are available from Amazon for purchase or rental in addition to 25,000 of them in high definition. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you have will have unlimited instant streaming of 17,000 of movies and TV shows. The annual Amazon Prime membership is $79.00

The PS3 app will include Recently Watched and Next Episode features, as well as personal recommendations based on customers’ viewing habits. The app will also sync up with Amazon servers so users can start streaming on one device and then move to the PS3 and pick up where they left off, or view content they purchased on other devices on the console. To give interested gamers an opportunity to try out the service, Amazon is offering the pilot episodes of more than 100 TV shows free to all PS3 users.

If not being able to watch Major League Baseball has been that last thread you couldn’t let go off to cut the cord, now you can.  Yesterday, MLB.TV Premium subscribers will have access to all available Spring Training games and every out-of-market regular season game on Xbox 360* as well as portability support to use their accounts across a variety of mobile and connected platforms. In addition, MLB.TV Premium subscribers get the award-winning MLB.com At Bat 12 mobile application for free on iPhone, iPad and Android.

“The launch of MLB.TV on Xbox 360 is an exciting development for baseball fans and symbolic of our commitment to deliver live games through Internet-connected distribution points,” said Kenny Gersh, Senior Vice President, Business Development, MLBAM. “Combining the technology powers of MLB.TV and Xbox will give fans even more options for watching live baseball games in high definition.”

“The future of sports entertainment will be more personal, interactive, and engaging,” said Yusuf Mehdi, Chief Marketing Officer, Xbox. “With unique features like a split-screen mode that lets you watch two games at once, and voice-control on Xbox 360 that lets you pause, rewind, or fast forward with the sound of your voice, the MLB.TV app for Xbox is a giant leap into the future.”

MLB.TV delivers every game in beautiful streaming HD, and most games give every fan the option of the Home or Away feed.

Look out kids. Your parents are going to take over your Xbox this summer!

Getting TV stations through the airwaves may seem like an anachronism in the age of streaming video online. But actually, the rise of Hulu and Netflix seems to be helping the rabbit ear industry.

Over the last few years, many of us cut the cord on cable in favor of streaming programming online. Hulu Plus ($8 a month), Netflix streaming ($8 a month) and even Amazon ($80 a year for Amazon Prime with free, instant access to shows and movies) all have the same sort of content as cable but costs much less than a $50-plus cable subscription.

(MORE: Non-Cable Subscribers Will Have to Pay $4 for March Madness Games Online)

It’s sparked industry analysts to predict the demise of the traditional cable package, even though some providers like Comcast believe they have started to right the ship, while claiming that massive cord-cutting has been exaggerated. Comcast recently announced that it lost “just” 17,000 video subscribers in the fourth quarter, which is the fewest in five years.

Naturally, with so many ways of getting broadcast content, you would think that accessing programming through an antenna would go the way of the Walkman. But actually, the industry is experiencing a bit of a boom.

According to The Wall Street Journal, TV-antenna sales are up – big. One retailer – Antennas Direct – says it expects to double last year’s sales of 600,000 antennas, which was itself an increase from 400,000 sold in 2010. Walmart even recently announced it would start stocking the seller’s antennas.

What’s going on? It seems that a number of consumers have decided to ditch cable altogether, and they are getting shows through a combination of over-the-air broadcast stations and online streaming services. “Every time that Hulu and Netflix enhance their services, our phones light up,” Richard Schneider of Antennas Direct told The Journal.

In a further hybrid of old and new technologies, a new service called Aereo will be launching in mid-March in New York that will allow cable-cutters to stream local broadcast signals online. It’ll be $12 a month, but will have a 30-day free trial period.

Still, the number of Americans who receive broadcast channels over the air is tiny, estimated at less than 10%. Most get those channels through their pay-TV packages that come with many more cable channels. But a lot of those channels are still accessible and completely free over the airwaves (after you purchase an antenna, of course, which ranges from as low as $10 to $150). And in parts of the country with good reception, it makes sense that consumers are turning to traditional rabbit ears while also getting content online. Most places in the U.S. can get on average 30 to 45 channels over the air.

Richard Schneider, President of Antennas Direct, was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal yesterday on the exploding market of free over-the-air  TV viewership using our antennas. Read the full interview here:

]]> http://www.antennasdirect.com/blog/wall-street-jornal-over-the-air-tv-catches-second-wind-aided-by-web.html/feed 0 http://www.antennasdirect.com/blog/broadcast-tv-only-broadband-homes-jump-23-2.html http://www.antennasdirect.com/blog/broadcast-tv-only-broadband-homes-jump-23-2.html#comments Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:41:42 +0000 clientadmin http://www.antennasdirect.com/blog/?p=1704 The Nielsen Co. was careful not to fan the cord-cutting flames, but its latest Cross Platform Report shows that the number of U.S. homes with broadcast-only TV and broadband jumped 22.8 percent since the third quarter of 2011. Nielsen estimates that there are 5.1 million homes in that category, after 1 million joined in during the 12-month period.

Gen Y’s are intrinsically tuned in to trying different forms of how to watch TV.

They are not chained to their parent’s cable\satellite boxes and own the technical

know-how of how to watch TV in different mediums.

Glen L. Friedman, president of Ideas & Solutions Inc., stated, “1 in 5 Generation Y’s have never purchased subscription-based TV or are former subscribers who have cut-the-cord.”

“1 in 3 of Gen Y’s have considered ending their cable subscriptions. They are more likely to own an iPad, have a wireless connection and subscribe to Netflix.” All they need is the link to OTA television.

Friedman’s firm research did test the notion that, rather than being a phenomenon tied to a poor economy, the number of cord cutters would continue to grow even once things got better.

A key obstacle that needs to be addressed to advance the rise of cord cutting is the low public awareness that broadcast television is still out there in the air.  It’s still free and looks nothing like what your grandparents watched. Spread the word.

If  you don’t have cable or satellite and you want to watch television, you need a digital antenna. On Friday, January 20th, KPLR 11, FOX 2 and Antennas Direct are giving away at least 400 digital antennas* beginning at 10am while supplies last. Come to Car Credit City in Bridgeton starting at 10am.

Each digital antenna includes instructions about how to maximize the digital signal in St. Louis. Antennas Direct will be offering a choice of indoor OR outdoor antenna.  In addition, FOX 2 and KPLR 11 engineers will be on-site to assist with questions related to installation.

* DIGITAL ANTENNA GIVEAWAY DOES NOT INCLUDE CONVERTER BOX.  Most TV’s have a digital tuner built in which by law, all TV’s sold in the last few years have them built in. If you have an older TV, you will likely need to a converter box in addition to the antenna.   Giveaway does not include coaxial cables, installation in your home or televisions.  Other restrictions may apply.