The end for Traditional TV is closer then ever

Yea - Nielsen has dropped the books in favor of monitoring devices. Now it just listens to what you are watching / listening to and records that information.
Not sure if they still do this, but back in the day, they also cared a lot about whether you were skipping commercials, so they installed a device in my Dish DVRs (VIP 722 & 622) that measured the power draw of the hard drive, and it could somehow tell when I skipped a commercial based on that.
 
They kept after us to participate a few years back. We refused. Ignored them. Eventually they stopped.
 
No, because I understand statistics and how to use them to find out what is going on, rather than just try to prove the point I have already decided is true by truly twisted interpretations of statistics.

Reality?

- Most streamers are money pits. There is this childlike faith that someday, some how, some way, it just has to make money. Presumably the billions of $$ that linear TV makes. Why? Lots of very nice technologies were very entertaining. And unprofitable. But the blunt fact is no one can answer the question of just what streaming has to do to become profitable. What is the secret?

- Streaming is a supplement. In the past people had no choice (don’t knitpick, just work with it) so linear was 100%. Now if they want, they can stream or watch linear TV. The fact that that choice has reached 30% of the time in no way teaches us that it is on some inevitable rise to 100. Rather the opposite. It has determined the %age that streaming will achieve. Basic understanding of basic statistics.

- And, of course, we are back to what the streaming is inevitable crowd always misses. This is not a product that is being rolled out, like a Tesla or something, where it will take years to get production up to meet demand. Anybody that wamts any streamer just needs to make a few clicks on a computer and they have it. And linear remains supreme and obscenely profitable.
Here's what I know. I never, ever, ever, ever, EVER see customers in their 20's 30's or 40's anymore. Even 50's are rare. Seeing the constant decline in pay-TV subs is evidence enough. Those people aren't just giving up TV watching completely.

There are many ways to stream without negotiating multiple apps on multiple devices. I have everything I need on my TV, including OTA, and I will never pay for any cable service again unless I'm forced to. It's neither a supplement in my house nor many millions of other people's houses.
 
I think ATSC 3.0 will be providing a substantial lifeline to traditional television... via non-traditional methods.
 
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As a kid (1960s) our neighbor had a Neilson set top box. I just remember some numbers on the top? Dont remember what they got paid? If they did? Must of had a phone line hooked up to it also? was a long time ago for sure!
 
I think you'll find that happening in a lot of threads once the Original Question has been answered.
That thread has gone haywire and really should be shut down due to not only becoming off-topic but also the defamatory bs being flung around in it. Although I have to admit I do get a bit of sick entertainment seeing how low people can go in it.
 
Just a couple of weeks ago I filled out a questionnaire that Nielsen mailed to me. I couldn't believe that they are still mailing these things out.
Stuck in the old world.

Nielsen has such a disadvantage in today’s streaming world compared to the likes of Netflix, who knows who watches what by the minute, not just a sample of the population, but everyone who watches something on their service.

Once I did not watch anything on Netflix for a month, they sent me a email wanting to know why and gave me suggestions of things to watch.
 
Someone should tell the TV station chains. These fools spend billions buying up smaller chains. Since linear TV is going away next Thursday.

This is what in statistical analysis "the strawberry effect".

Another way of looking at ‘a number of fools spending billions buying up smaller chains’ is that ‘a number of fools are getting out while the gettins good.’


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This is from Nielsen, the ratings folks, not some blogger, showing streaming is way up in November, while Traditional TV is way down in the one month they do not like it to be down, Sweeps, when they set the Advertising Rates based on Ratings.

View attachment 159940

Netflix, HBO Max and YouTube all achieved double-digit viewing increases in November, up 13.1%, 12.2% and 11.8%, respectively versus October. Netflix also saw the most significant monthly increase in share (+0.4) to finish November with 7.6% of TV.

On a year-over-year basis, time spent watching cable content declined 9.3% and the category lost 5.1 share points.


If streaming has that much of the market, then why aren't TV stations, diginets, etc all stream? Many channels are only available OTA. For instance if you want channels like Antenna TV or Rewind, the only way to get them in OTA. I am waiting for the day when all channels are available via a stream. Frndly TV has picked up some diginets, but not all. Dish has some also, but many they do not carry. So in many cases, the only way to get some diginets and other channels are OTA.
 
If streaming has that much of the market, then why aren't TV stations, diginets, etc all stream?
First off, most of those channels barely get ratings.

It is not that the channel needs to stream, but the content.

Much of those reruns stream on Content Providers Streaming Services, like Paramount, then of course, services like Pluto, Tubi, even Hulu.

Much like how you cannot purchase just ABC as a streaming service, all of it’s current content is on Hulu.

If you are thinking why they are not on services like YTTV, Hulu Live, etc, maybe as something something simple like cannot come to a agreement, maybe they do not have rights to stream the content because others do or they only have rights to show the content OTA.

A lot of those channels are not on Traditional Providers either.
 
Lets throw this into the mix


The “spin off ESPN” idea has gone around among Wall Street types for over a year, as Disney’s political missteps and grossly unprofitable streaming venture (what is it again that is the inevitable secret that will automatically happen to make streaming profitable) drag down the stock.

Self appointed “analysts” who tell the people actually running big companies what to do are a common Wall Street sighting. There is a reason one guy is running the company and the other is more or less the stock market version of a tout.

Anyway, both ABC and ESPN have problems in the long term.

ABC, like all TV station groups, have gotten fat from retransmission consent. TRUE cord cutters, as opposed to the vast majority who are just cord switchers, don’t have linear TV and don’t pay retransmission costs. Network TV, leaving out sports, and for some people, local news (and most local news is available free on the internet), is just filler. ABC currently has eight hours of actual filmed scripted shows. None of which are any good. The rest is sports, game shows, faux reality, cooking, and news commentary. Daytime TV, well, let’s just say, is low effort politics. Network news has never actually made money, and while people get all worked up about late night ratings, the actual highest rated late night event is sleeping, its three bad comics fighting over a handful of people.

ESPN is a much larger problem. It remains, unlike streaming, obscenely profitable. But the business model is flawed. In the bundle, “everybody” paid, and paid a LOT for ESPN (and its imitators) whether they liked sports or not. Most people do not like sports. The TRUE cord cutters are mostly price driven, and the price in turn is driven by sports. There have always been many homes that would opt out of sports if they could, and now they can.

So just sell ESPN a la carte. Not so fast sparky. That business model just doesn’t work. First, selling it a la carte voids every cable and other providers contract. And why would ANYONE pay for the bundle if you could really do what the cord switchers claim they can do, which is only pay for what they want? So selling it a la carte means the end of the cable bundle system. And then end of that sweet, $8/month from little old ladies who only watch Game Show Network and Hallmark movies. They have done the math, and a la carte ESPN needs $50/month to break even. Add in Fox Sports, the RSN, and then the streamers that carry sports along with the reruns and melodramas (Amazon, Apple, Peacock, etc) and you are looking at $120-150 month, just for sports. Remember all those “I never watch ______ why do I have to pay for it” posts. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

So, these “analysts” want Disney to slough off what conventional wisdom says will be toxic assets in maybe a decade or so.

Which leaves Disney with some aging amusement parks, a library full of reruns, not just its own but Fox’s for which it paid way too much, and a movie studio that seems only able to make endless remakes of comic book movies.

And Disney streaming, which is gushing money like a stuck pig.
 
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“Disney's direct-to-consumer division, which also includes Hulu and ESPN+, on Tuesday reported an operating loss of nearly $1.5 billion, more than doubling its loss of $630 million during the same quarter a year earlier.Nov 8, 2022”

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Not sure if they still do this, but back in the day, they also cared a lot about whether you were skipping commercials, so they installed a device in my Dish DVRs (VIP 722 & 622) that measured the power draw of the hard drive, and it could somehow tell when I skipped a commercial based on that.
They can tell the difference between skipping a commercial and regular content?
 

I just wanted to watch more Golf! :(

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