Hip Kids Contribute to TV Ownership Decline

Reuters

A home without a TV isn’t quite as unheard of as it used to be.

New research from the Nielsen Company found that 96.7 percent of American homes have at least one television, down from 98.9 percent the last time Nielsen took count. This is the first time in 20 years that TV ownership has declined.

Nielsen partly blames the drop on poverty combined with broadcast television’s switch from analog to digital. The new broadcast method requires a digital tuner or an HDTV with the tuner built-in, so poor families may avoid new televisions altogether if their old TVs break. And because digital reception is worse than analog in some rural areas, upgrading may still leave some homes without live television.

The other reason, Nielsen says, is the tendency of some college graduates and young professionals to rely on their laptops for entertainment. They may buy new televisions later, but they’re not rushing out to get one after graduation.

Regardless of whether the trend continues or not, the study is bad news for subscription TV providers, and not just because fewer people have a TV. These viewers are being exposed to a world of content without cable, with services like Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and Amazon. Even after these users can afford a television in the living room, some may question the benefits of paying $50 for a whole bunch of content they don’t need.

(via the New York Times)

wizworks

Actually, the real reason is people are trying to reduce their costs. I eliminated Cable TV (Comcast) & we save almost a THOUSAND dollars every year! It’s ridiculous what they get, especially when you can only effectively watch about 10% of what you subscribe to!

I do beg to differ on the notion that DTV is worse in terms of reception. With a proper antenna, it is actually superior and more reliable. I crafted my own antenna and installed it in our attic & we get 34 stations where we live, where analog reception was terrible & noise prone. We get all these stations in perfect clarity and with no breakup. Rabbit ears won’t cut it, unless you live in the city, so having a decent antenna IS a great investment that will pay for itself in just one month of use when properly installed. I now sell these antennas (Proudly made in the USA!) to anyone who wants one in their cord-cutting efforts. (wizworks.net/tv) We also use a home built DVR (but any DVR will do) with our off-air antenna and we are quite happy.

For internet, we now have FiOS @$54/month which we consider reasonable. Comcast wanted to punish us for terminating video service by raising the cost of our internet from $50/month to $67/month. I said NO! and we get our internet from Verizon over their FiOS network, which we’re quite happy with as well.

Say NO to cable! Cut the cord today!