Problems With Cable TV

Not only does cable have problems but do does Direct TV which prides itself on offering a wide variety of options for customers that people can enjoy. They have had more and more cord cutting over the years and their decision to team up too with AT&T they are clearly trying to regain their leverage and be in control. It is no longer good enough just to have a set program but customers elect to vote with the money that they earn and as a result, they are trying to control what companies can do and companies have to react.

It is smart that all of these major conglomerates have enough awareness that they have to evolve or Netflix will continue to dominate them in the mobile and digital streaming world of television and movies. It is the mistake that Blockbuster made when they put them out of business. According to the article “Epic Fail: How Blockbuster Could Have Owned Netflix” which talks about how they had the change to purchase Netflix for $50 million dollars which seems like a bargain today with how much money Netflix has made, makes and looks like will continue to make.

Instead, they elected to purchase Circuit City which was not doing well as a business and Blockbuster went out of business soon after that. That was a perfect time to evolve and get into television series and the digital world for Blockbuster since they are not everywhere but they could be a part of people’s days in five minutes just clicking a few buttons and collecting customer’s money.

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Netflix is a company that is trying to be more effect than other companies and I think one of the biggest reasons Netflix dominates is they have nothing to fall back on. Though all of the major conglomerates do care about having mobile television and are a pain to television networks, if their mobile television does not work as well as they would like, they can always fall back on their ability to provide phone service and almost everyone has a phone so there is still use for that. In the article “Media Substitution in Cable Cord-Cutting: The Adoption of Web-Streaming Television” says that 38% of millennials have elected to cut the cord. The reasons include cable’s lack of wiliness to not decrease their prices with all of the channels that they have and how there are more and more streaming services now than ever before. Netflix and YouTube are not just something that replaces traditional media such as television but they are alternatives in many ways.

Not only does television now not just have to adjust to the mobile and digital world with their content they have to focus even more so on what they are doing. Technology has made many people’s attention spans shorter. With millennials living in the information age, I do not think it is a coincidence that cord cutting is seen often with millennials since they have had more options. They can watch something on their phone instead of driving home and waiting to get the six or seven pm news that was such a big think for many years. With how quick everything is on the Internet and being able to find out so much, I do not think it is a coincidence that the companies that are thriving are the ones that are constantly changing such as Netflix and Hulu.

Television can blame the Telecommunications Act of 1996 signed by Bill Clinton which in many ways was the opposite of the Communications Act of 1934. In the book “Understanding Media Industries” Havens and Lotz say there was significantly looser restrictions on what companies could purchase and the business they could get into whereas the Communications Act of 1934 was much more rigid about the guidelines that they had to follow and was not going to change. It was there to have more and more competition which is exactly what it did. Now, everyone was competition against each other with little to no restrictions that they previously had before.

With cord cutting continuing to be a problem, the article “Streaming Footprint Eclipses Cables” which talks about the issues that millennials have with cable and how now you can password share with streaming. That is another thing that can force television’s hand where if people are sharing passwords they are losing money which will then force them to potentially have to cut down their prices more than they want to.

It is interesting to see what the companies that are dominating the most have in common such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Netflix was seen as an alternative to Blockbuster and had to create their own ideas and make it their own along with Hulu too. They could not be concerned about just making money but they had to have a plan to get customers in and in many ways they saw the future before everyone else did. Amazon Prime is part of Amazon which is part of Amazon which is similar to eBay an online shopping website. They in many ways all three of these websites have changed people’s viewing habits since all you have to do is click on their app and be able to watch what you want to watch.

I find it interesting that the companies that are struggling with the digital age and mobile television are the ones that are used to dominating such as ESPN. They are a big brand and you would think they are infallible and they continuously have had serious issues for the articles I looked at with cord cutting. From the article “2017 Year in Sports Media” where Deitch says that SportsCenter is irrelevant now for the most part because of all of the things going on in the digital world to having to create digital and significantly less expensive prices for their products on digital devices. The view of the “millennial sports fan” has drastically changed. They have to adapt with new things and it is not enough to just have the games and have SportsCenter and just talk about the game. There needs to be more interesting people covering their games which most likely means they have to spend more on salaries to having to be creative where they still make money on online streaming and mobile streaming but they do not want to lose money and have to have another layoff that they have had previously.

From the research that I have done, I thought the answer would be an obvious one that television needs mobile television more than mobile television needs television and it is even more of a landslide than I previously thought. From the beginning in the article “Defining mobile television: The Social Deconstruction of New and Old Media” where they talk about television no longer being the main norm that people were used to and how it was decline since 1980 the world has changed and our culture has changed. We have more leverage now than we previously have and mobile television is the new norm and is new media. Television benefits when people see it anyway they can and have come to the conclusion that they just have to accept that they world has change and if you do not evolve, there will be consequences to pay. Mobile television took advantage of the crossroads that television was going under and they have been a pain ever since. It has evolved into Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and all of these companies continue to benefit.

If television did not evolve at all, they would become Blockbuster which probably made the mistake of the century not buying Netflix which is one of the most obvious solutions for big conglomerates to buy the startup companies before they put them out of business. It could have made Blockbuster a major conglomerate that could still dominate where they would still have the ‘’old school’’ which still might be there and the ‘’new school’’ where you can order things online and be able to access what you want, how you want and when you want.

When you see multiple big brands all teaming up with each other such as Time Warner and AT&T to catch Netflix and continue to be in competition and be willing to spend over a billion dollars because Netflix is that much of a problem in the mobile television world and teaming up is a way to combat that. Hollywood 25 years ago probably never would have thought they would have to adjust the way they do now to catch Netflix, which all of these companies are admitting that we need to keep evolving in the mobile television game and do what it takes to make profit and please the customers.

Habits of phones have changed and another way big companies have had to adjust is getting into social media since it is a habit that is so big. In the article “Is the NBA Social Media Addiction Out of Control” they talk about how NBA players are obsessed with their phones and how they use it. The article interviews the Philadelphia 76ers shooting guard J.J. Reddick who talks about the habits of NBA players who are almost all under the age of 35 habits of using phones. There is an addiction to Instagram in the article “Is the NBA Social Media Out of Control.” J.J. Reddick continues to talk about “phone bags’’ and “phone buckets” where everyone has to give up their phone as a potential solution to have people actually talk to each other. People when on their phones are so close being right together, but so far away is they are