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March 13, 2015

Americans are moving faster than ever away from traditional TV

Traditional television watching is declining faster than ever as streaming services become a mainstream feature in American homes, according to new research by Nielsen.
Adults watched an average of four hours and 51 minutes of live TV each day in the fourth quarter of 2014, down 13 minutes from the same quarter of 2013, according to Nielsen’s fourth-quarter 2014 Total Audience Report. Viewing was down six minutes between the fourth quarter of 2013 and 2012. And between 2012 and 2011, viewing time actually increased for live TV.
At the same time, more homes turned to online video, with 40 percent of U.S. homes subscribing to a streaming service such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or Hulu compared with 36 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Nielsen. Netflix is by far the most popular streaming service, in 36 percent of all U.S. homes, and Amazon Instant Video is in 13 percent of homes.
The trends have rattled the entertainment industry, with broadcast and cable networks scrambling to take on new competitors on the Web. Cable networks have seen steep ratings declines, which got much worse in the last six months of 2014. Cable ratings among adults fell 9 percent in 2014, three times the rate of decline over 2013, according to Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Moffett Nathanson research.
“It’s hard to ignore our belief that technology is disrupting viewer consumption of linear network programming,” Nathanson wrote in a recent research note.
In response, companies such as HBO, NBC and CBS are launching their own streaming services. The moves could unleash a fast demise of the cable and satellite industries that have fed TV networks with licensing fees.
Television is still king, with viewers of all ages getting the vast majority of their video entertainment and news from live programs and using time-shifted services such as DVRs. But even older viewers — the stalwarts of traditional TV — are spending less time watching live TV and programs saved on DVRs.

6 comments:

  1. The problem isn't the delivery vehicle, it's the content. What passes for entertainment is mind numbing and full of propaganda. What passes for news is pure propaganda and totally irrelevant. I set up a Ku band FTA (Free to Air) satellite dish years ago. Today you can get a whole set-up for about $250. I watch only foreign news stations and get a broad base of views. I watch 6 or 7 core channels but there are many hundreds available on satellites like Galaxy 19 and 25. Nobody needs to watch this crap any more and you certainly don't need to pay for it.

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  2. My TV is broken
    There are Joos on every channel.

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  3. "I watch only foreign news stations and get a broad base of views."

    Good call.

    The western MSM is not up to the task of providing a broad base of views.

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  4. It's not allowed to. It has become the ministry of propaganda. All views are the same and they never criticize the government view or policy. If the press won't do their job how can there possibly be any meaningful national dialogue about anything important??

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  5. Yep. I avidly followed the MSM in the lead up to and during the second gulf war in 2003 - and I realized I was basically watching stenography.

    I saw the whole decision to bomb and invade Iraq go completely unchallenged, uncriticized, unanalyzied.

    Any disagreeing viewpoints were utterly quashed or smeared with the idiotic 'anti-american' slur.

    After that - I completely checked out of the MSM news channels as a relevant news source - and hit the internet for a deeper level of information and analysis - which included non western press.

    Then, boy was I in for a few surprises :) :)

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  6. Thats exactly my point. I more or less saw the MSM as just incompetent but not malevolent until a day or so after 9-11. I caught a young kid, cub reporter on a New York station interviewing Madelaine Albright, the secretary of state at the time. He asked her a perfectly valid question. He asked her if she thought 9-11 could be a result of US foreign policy. She looked at him with daggers and refused to answer the question. He grabbed his ear piece, he producer was obviously screaming at him. I never saw him on air again. From that instant I knew the MSM was not about news, it was about pure propaganda and I haven't watched it or believed it since. Within a year a Bush 41 political hack was appoint to the board of directors of NPR. Within a week all NPR and Public Television was in lock-step with the Official Agenda 100%. All objectivity disappeared overnight. haven't watched that since either. The newspapers are even worse, and they wonder why they are dying. There probably are a few people in the US who actually watch, but it isn't many. How could it be with such garbage for content and guys like "Lying Brian" reading it..Their ratings are in the toilet, good...

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