Cutting the cable
Consumers turn to the Internet, antennas to catch movies, TV shows and more
An increasing number of consumers are giving up cable in favour of getting their home entertainment online or using this century’s version of rabbitear antennas to tune into TV shows.
Alittle over a year ago Alexis Hinde decided to cut her cable service. Hinde is part of the trend in which an increasing number of consumers are getting home entertainment online.
In Hinde’s case, she has opted for the Internet, replacing her Shaw cable with a combination of Netflix and Apple TV for watching movies and TV series.
“We cancelled cable, which had crept up to $ 75 a month for not that amazing a package,” said Hinde, who lives in Vancouver. “Occasionally we’ll buy a TV series, that’s between $ 30 and $ 50, but we only buy one or two a season. “We haven’t missed cable.” Hinde isn’t alone. According to Deloitte’s recent State of the Media Democracy report, nine per cent of Americans have dropped their TV service and watch their favourite shows online instead. Another 11 per cent say they are considering doing the same.
The survey was conducted for the professional services firm Deloitte’s media and entertainment practice in the United States by Harrison Group, an independent research company. The online survey polled more than 2,000 U. S. consumers aged 14 to 75 years old.
The move online has cut Hinde’s monthly bill almost in half. She used to pay $ 120 a month for Internet and TV, including her $ 75 cable bill. Now her monthly bill for Internet and Netflix is about $ 55 and to those costs, she adds the TV series she buys through Apple’s itunes.
“We didn’t watch a huge amount of TV anyway because we just weren’t home,” said Hinde, who used to work in film and television before her son was born and she started her current business Chill Monkeys, a clothing collection for little boys.
While some consumers like Hinde are opting to cut cable completely, both Shaw and Telus are reporting increased subscriber numbers for their TV services, suggesting that the overall home entertainment market is growing.
In its most recent quarterly results Telus reported a record 56,000 new subscribers for its Optik TV service, pushing the total numbers to 509,000.
In its most recent quarter, Shaw saw revenue in its cable division up four per cent, with the company attributing the increase to customer growth and price changes.
Some customers are opting for a hybrid solution, not cutting their cable but also accessing entertainment via the Internet.
Morten Rand- Hendriksen has been using a homemade antenna to tune into local stations such as CBC, Global and others that have broadcast towers in the area. But while he planned to drop his cable service, he and his wife now want to buy a house and their new- found predilection for home decorating shows has kept them paying the cable bill, at least for now.
They also use their Xbox to get Netflix.
If you’re shopping for an antenna, you’ll want one that’s good for analog, digital and high- definition over- theair broadcasts. Prices start at less than $ 50.
Rand- Hendriksen’s homemade antenna cost about $ 15 and it works just fine.
“I made mine from clothes hangers, scrap wood from Home Depot, two pieces of pipe and a little $ 3 component to plug the TV into it,” said Rand- Hendriksen, a Web designer and developer who lives in Burnaby. “The whole point was minimum effort for maximum output.”
For Surrey’s Stephen Hudson, new technology has helped decrease his monthly expenses for home entertainment.
“I’ve cancelled my cable,” he said. “I have Apple TV which connects to my network, I can watch movies on my Mac computer, I can go to Youtube, Netflix.”
Hudson can also stream movies and shows to his TV and he has an app for Global TV on his ipad and his iphone.
“Once the current TV shows have aired on television, you can watch them online. You may have to watch them a bit later, but you don’t have to pay for cable,” he said.
“I watched Glee on my ipad with my kids in my truck yesterday while we were waiting for someone, I ran it through the sound system in my truck.”
Hudson spent $ 110 on Apple TV, a little set- top box that connects his TV to itunes, Netflix and other Internet services and allows him to stream movies, photos or other entertainment from computers and mobile devices like his iphone or ipad on his home network onto his big- screen TV.
“When I had cable it was $ 138 a month,” said Hudson. Now he pays about $ 40 for an Internet connection that forms the basis of his home entertainment network.
Consumers can access Internet content using devices like Apple TV, other set- top boxes or game consoles like Xbox or Playstation; an increasing number are buying Internet- enabled TVS.
Last year, only 12 per cent of TVS sold were Internet- enabled; this year almost half will be able to connect directly to the Internet.
Despite the proliferation of alternatives that allow TV viewers to catch up on shows outside the regular broadcast times, Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions for 2012 found that consumers are watching 98 per cent of programs within 24 hours of broadcast, a statistics that has remained “virtually unchanged” according to Deloitte from a decade ago.