And why not? When I travel back to the US I can tolerate about five minutes of TV before I can't stand seeing yet another commercial. We've had TV service with our international (free) phone and high speed internet (100MB FiOS for a few years) included for at least five years with prices being around 1/4 to 1/3 the price of the US offerings. That said, when our last TV died five years ago we never bothered to get another. As this article says, when we want to watch something, we visit iTunes or pick up the DVD. It's easier and we waste less time being distracted by countless programs that offer too little, with too many commercials. Though TV commercials are radically fewer over here.
Make no mistake: The big cable, satellite, and telco carriers are still sitting pretty with more than 100 million TV subscribers. Nevertheless, a new report claims that more and more viewers are "cutting the cord" in favor of watching their favorite shows via over-the-air antennas (remember those?), Netflix, or the Web.
TechCrunch has the scoop on a new report from the Toronto-based Convergence Consulting Group, and though the figures may not be a "serious threat" to the big cable and satellite carriers yet, the trend might eventually spell trouble for the like of Cablevision, Comcast, DirecTV, and Time Warner Cable.
To wit: Nearly 800,000 households in the U.S. have "cut the cord," dumping their cable, satellite, or telco TV providers (such as AT&T U-verse or Verizon FiOS) and turning instead to Web-based videos (like Hulu), downloadable shows (iTunes), by-mail subscription services (Netflix), or even good ol' over-the-air antennas for their favorite shows, according to the report.
