Making the Cut: Cable TV vs. the Internet
Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and countless other providers offer a service that has exploded in usage and popularity in recent years: online television.
In an Internet-dominated age where cable is beginning to look increasingly more unappealing and pricey, online viewership of television and movies is soaring. Rather than remaining gimmicky alternatives that one only resorts to when the television refuses to turn on, Internet television and video streaming have become some of the main venues for television viewership. Instead of watching a film at the movie theater or the latest episode of a television series on the actual television, more and more people are turning to online video streaming as an alternative. Since 2010, Internet television is the most common form of television in the United States. Some viewers are even choosing to “make the cut” by eliminating cable television entirely in favor of online television.
It’s easy to understand why online television is an attractive option. The switch seems like a reasonable decision given that the cost of Netflix is $8.99 a month while Comcast cable charges $39.99 a month for 140 channels, not including internet fees. The added appeal of being able to watch whatever you want, whenever you want, is even more understandable—who wants to wait until 8 pm when you can pull that episode up on Netflix at a moment’s notice? The icing on the cake comes from services like Amazon Prime that also provide music streaming services (akin to Spotify), free two-day shipping, and an e-book lending library for the Kindle. Compared to all those perks, Comcast suddenly looks a lot less cool. At College Prep, an impressive 64% of students polled used online streaming services to watch TV.
What does this mean for traditional television? Is it possible for cable TV to bounce back when
To top it all off, although all video streaming services are theoretically equal, they are not exactly the same. Shows on Netflix will occasionally be different than shows on Hulu, so if you want to see them all, you’ll have to subscribe to both. Some channels might not even be available on any streaming service, so viewers may still end up turning away from their laptops and cranking on the television.
At the moment, it doesn’t look like online television has caught up to the more “traditional” forms of cable TV. In the large scope of things, Internet television is a relatively new market and still has a lot of kinks to smooth out before it can dismantle cable entirely. It’s still likely that all television may be streamed through the Internet one day. But until then, cable television will be a common commodity throughout American households—and it won’t be relinquishing its hold anytime soon.