How will we watch TV in five years?

[Bruce]

In five years, for those with access to connections greater than 25mb, will have the option to be 100% IPTV.. all channels will be individually purchases, a la WWE Network.

The one thing that will stop that is cap limits, here with Comcast if have a 25 mb broadband you are capped at 300GB, that is one of the reasons I went up to Extreme 105, the cap limit is 600GB, last month I hit 330GB and I know that will go up when the kids are home all day during the summer it will go up, that is also we do a lot of binge watching on Netflix and Vudu.

Yes we will get exactly what we want, but at 2-5$ a channel per month, its going to get expensive.

I dream of that, I could get away from all the channels I don't watch, I think I would need apps for about 15 channels at most- CBS
NBC
ABC
FOX
CW
AMC
FX
SYFY
Food Channel-wife loves it
CNN
Fox News
A & E
BBC America
Don't need the movie Channels since I have a little over 700 movies on Vudu and I share my Ultra Violet account with five family members so that splits the cost of new movies five ways,don't watch sports except the NFL which I get the Lions on the locals.

 

[mike123abc]

Even at $5/month/channel I would still save money. Besides OTA I only want about 7-8. Only ones I really see are SYFY, USA, TNT, FX, HGTV, & MTV. Even then if it were $5/month I could drop MTV since I only watch teen wolf on it and cheaper to buy season on itunes than to pay $60/year... Same with FX.

 

[king3pj]

Even at $5/month/channel I would still save money. Besides OTA I only want about 7-8. Only ones I really see are SYFY, USA, TNT, FX, HGTV, & MTV. Even then if it were $5/month I could drop MTV since I only watch teen wolf on it and cheaper to buy season on itunes than to pay $60/year... Same with FX.

For me I don't need any channels outside of OTA. You hit the nail on the head with that last sentence, at least for my viewing habits. Channels don't matter to me... It's the programing that does. Even the channels I really like, AMC for example, typically have 1 or 2 shows I actually watch at a time. I'm much happier buying the exact shows I want to watch as a season pass from iTunes than I was paying for channels I don't watch and reality filler on channels I did watch. Plus I'm saving a lot of money. All the people who have been begging for a la carte should hop over to iTunes or Amazon. It's already here.

 

[king3pj]

...plus all the taxes and cable/video franchise fees you've haven't paid in the past.

I don't see it. The cable companies pay the franchise fees for the right to put their wires on public property. They pay the municipalities and then, when the cost is passed along to us, we end up paying them for the right to drape wires across our lawns. They are already paying that fee whether you stream video or not. If they are going to start adding it to internet subscribers monthly bill it would have to go to everyone, not just the streamers.

Buying a season pass is different than cable anyways. With Dish I used to pay my bill every month and watch and record whatever I want. Once I canceled I lost access to everything I recorded because I didn't own it. With these season passes I own the episodes. I don't have to pay any monthly bill to watch them whenever I want. It's just the downloadable version of buying a blu-ray box set complete with special features in most cases. I don't see how a cable franchise fee would apply in this case any more than it does to music purchased from iTunes or blu-ray box set purchased from Target.