But doesn't that mean that the carriers themselves, whether cable, satellite, or via cellphone or internet, are losing customers? Correct me if I'm wrong, but ESPN gets their $9 or so per month per subscriber regardless of the physical transmission mode. The only way ESPN and the other non-OTA program services don't make money is if there is no subscription to any of them -- aka, reception only via antenna, which means ESPN isn't available to them in the first place, other than via ABC.
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Future of linear cable channels?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
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K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Not if no one is subscribing.
This is where broadband fees come in. They also have expensive business services. The CATV side of the business is not their only revenue stream.
And many of us are unsubscribing because we can not eliminate expensive tiers from the cable service. In my household, nobody uses any of the dozen or so sports channels ever. Yet the total subscriber fee we pay is over $180 a year for those sports channels.
ESPN is its own worse enemy. They cause cable subscriptions to be so expensive that may are just cancelling the whole thing.
ESPN is its own worse enemy. They cause cable subscriptions to be so expensive that may are just cancelling the whole thing.
If ESPN goes under that means the whole television model is dead.
Isn't it still like over 40 million though? There are also services like Youtube TV and Hulu Plus Live which get some subscribers and cheaper ones like Philo and Sling.
At its peak ESPN had money from 120 million subscribers.
The number I heard now is around 70 million.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Which, rather than helping cable survive, instead hammer nails into its coffin.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Let's see ... first Connecticut had the first subscription television station (WHCT) the demise of which set back the development of OTA pay TV by about a decade. Then cable killed subscription TV via nationwide premium channels such as HBO/Cinemax, Showtime, The Movie Channel, etc., which used the same satellite as ESPN and the rest of the cable networks, which gradually moved viewing away from OTA. As ESPN grew, its owners decided that the channel was worth having the highest per-subscriber carriage fee in the industry. That, in turn, eventually led to cord cutting, and while it briefly looked like OTA diginets on subchannels was going to reverse the trend, it really hasn't.
So should we blame Connecticut for everything? 🤪
I found one even worse, a cable channel called "Great American Faith & Living" airs 7 episodes every weekday of the public domain episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies. There are only 55 episodes in the public domain so every week they're playing the same episodes.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I've seen that happen lots of times over the years on various "classic" networks. There are also PD episodes of the 1950's incarnation of Dragnet (in fact, I think those are all in the public domain ... if you can find a copy; many of the nearly 300 episodes are nowhere to be found), the first season of Petticoat Junction (38 episodes), approximately 30 of The Lucy Show episodes (surprisingly, most from the fifth season!), and a handful of the George Burns-Gracie Allen kinescoped episodes from season one.
I'm sure I'm missing a few but those stand out in my memory.
Except these services are helping linear cable channels survive as channels such as CNN, A&E, Hallmark, etc are available on YouTube TV, Philo, Hulu Live, etc.
YouTube TV is a streaming service.
They are but they stream many linear cable channels such as CNN, TNT, Fx, Food Neteork, etc. So it might be streaming services that stop some linear cable channels ftom shutting down.
How did certain seasons of certain tv series become public domain? A mistake with someone forgetting to file or renew a copyright registration?
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Generally speaking, it happened when the "copyright (year)" was not included in the credits somewhere. And to be valid, it had to include the year; I remember that most of the Ozzie & Harriet episodes only said "Copyright Ozzie Nelson" and that also caused them to fall into the public domain prematurely. I was told by the attorney that handled my trademark that without the year the "copyright" notice becomes invalid on its own because it does not specify when the copyright was established.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Only as long as it continues to work for their business model. There's a "vicious circle" there ... as more people stream those channels, the more cord cutting, which means fewer subscribers via cable, which means lower subscriber fees from the cable companies. Sooner or later, the proverbial "tipping point" will be reached, at which point those networks will say goodbye to cable. More nails in that coffin.
Mgomrjsurf
Banned
CNN,Food Nwtwork and so on will never show up for free but their content might.
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