Okay, Okay, Maybe Netflix Is a Problem for Cable After All

Interesting article about Netflix cutting in on Satellite and cable from Allthingsd.com.

Netflix is booming, but the service’s success isn’t coming at the expense of the cable business. Just ask Netflix CEO Reed Hastings or the cable guys, all of whom will be happy to tell you.
Nonsense, says a new report: The Diffusion Group’s survey of Netflix users finds 32 percent of them planning on cutting at least part of their cable bill — either because they can’t afford it, or because they’ve got plenty of stuff to watch online. That’s up from 16 percent a year ago. (Thanks to VideoNuze for flagging).

This jibes with both common sense and other anecdotal evidence we’ve seen. Like Roku's surveys that show that up to 40 percent of its customers have cut some or all of their cable service after buying a box from the company, presumably to watch Netflix.
And again, because it’s not necessarily about cord cutting, but cord shaving, the Diffusion Group study also fits with statistics that show cable subscriptions holding steady even as Netflix adds millions of subscribers per quarter.
Start paying Reed Hastings $8 a month and you may not be ready to rip out your cable box. But you might be willing to drop down a service tier, or say goodbye to HBO.
Some cable company executives will indeed acknowledge this, but not around people who will quote them on the record. And even when they’re chatting on background, they’re still likely to argue that their company will make it through just fine — it’s the other guys who are screwed.
Meanwhile the Netflix folks, a disciplined bunch, continue to insist that they come in peace. And they keep writing those checks that the content guys are happy to cash, even as they worry about what’s going to happen about the cable business. One day.

Source - Allthingsd.com

Live TV - For the cord cutters

Its unavoidable , sometimes you got to have some live TV. Local news, sporting events, and the results for American Idol. But really add up the amount of time you actually sit down and watch those live events. For local news, you could easily go the website of any local news station and catch the headlines. For sporting events, those are usually only available during the season. I can't personally say anything about watching sporting events, because I don't like to watch them.

In those cases that you feel that you need some live tv, you have some choices. If you subscribe to cable internet, you might be able to get some local channels with your internet. Most cable providers are trying to free up bandwidth on the system to provider more services on the same copper line coming into your home. In the attempt to do so, they are switching the analog channels over to digital. These digital channels require a cable box in the home in order to watch them. Or so the cable company tells you. Actually they will encode these channels in what's called clear QAM. These channels can be tuned on most HDTV's that have a digital tuner. And all those new digital tuners that everyone had to buy a few months back as well.  The digital tuner in these box's and TV's are now required to watch some TV transmissions due to the fact that the FCC mandated that all analog broadcast cease over the air transmission and switch to the digital format in order to free up the spectrum. So if you have cable internet use a 2 way splitter and connect one cable to your TV and the other to your modem. Then run the channel scan. What you will see are that the local channels come through. Come through in HD.

The other choice is to connect a large antenna to your TV and tune in your local HD stations. You'd be surprised by how many channels you can actually get over the air. And with the switch to digital, the signal will either be there or it won't. If you can tune the stations in you'll be happy with an HD picture, that is totally free.

I currently am subscribed to cable internet. They trap out the analog channels so they can provide us with just the internet. If I connect the cable to my TV I get the local channels in their digital format for free. This makes paying for that internet connection a better value. Mainly because I'm not paying for 100 channels I will never watch.

Live TV coming to Xbox this fall

There were some exciting annoucements about some added features to Xbox 360 coming this fall.  If you've been following the blog you'll know what a big fan I am of the Xbox 360.  These announcements just make the product even better, and help in cutting the cord with the cable and satellite companies.

Article from Cnet.com

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft said on Monday at its E3 Xbox press conference here that Xbox is going to have Live TV starting this fall.


Mark Whitten announced the service briefly but with few details. He said more content partners would be added later.


Xbox Live is also getting a few more features to beef up the entertainment experience. The service is going to get YouTube, Bing for search, and voice control to control all of it.


You'll be able to use Bing to find more content to watch, by searching the Web, YouTube, Live TV, and all the services on Xbox Live, including existing ones like Netflix and Hulu Plus. And voice control will let you speak your search item, such as the name of a movie, TV show, or game.


That means less time fiddling around with a controller. "You no longer have to navigate through the menus to find content," said Mark Whitten, head of Xbox Live.


Whitten said Microsoft plans to increase its partnership "by a factor of 10."


"This is only the beginning," he said.




Source - C-Net E3 Coverage

Netflix CEO: cable is still going strong despite online streaming

Netflix CEO seemed to suggest the world is big enough for cable and Netflix both during a talk given duing the All Things Digital conference today.

If Netflix’s aim is to lure consumers away from cable companies, it’s doing a lousy job of it so far. That’s according to Netflix’s own CEO Reed Hastings. Hastings, speaking at the All Things Digital conference, admitted that cable is still going strong despite the rise in online streaming options.

Hastings was directly asked by a journalist if his company was seeking to “encourage cord cutting.” Hastings denied the claim citing statistics that show cable subscriptions have increased during the past two quarters. Last year’s decline in cable subscriptions, Hasting said, was due to the flagging economy — not because of Netflix’s own surge in subscribers.
“Statistically no one is dropping cable,” Hastings said. “To the consumer, Netflix really is complementary,” he added. Hastings went on to admit that he himself subscribes to Comcast, the company often cited as Netflix’s number one competitor. Comcast, and cable companies in general, provide one genre that Netflix has no interest in pursuing: live content, including news and sports.

“Cable and satellite has an incredible array of content,” Hastings said. “Netflix competes for a very specific, relatively small part of the pie.”

Why isn’t Netflix being more aggressive towards cable? Well, a strategy that directly challenges cable is likely to be price. And it’s not likely that Netflix would want to risk alienating its customer base by raising subscription rates to foot the bill required by such a move. In short, Netflix is quite happy where it’s at for the moment, at least on the surface.

But that’s not to say Hastings is disinterested in cable completely. He specifically mentioned HBO’s critically acclaimed series “The Wire” as a prime target for Netflix. But, Hastings conceded, the acquistion of the series would likely require “a big, big check” signed by Netflix.

source:  Digital Trends

He's right about live events.  Netflix can't replace that, but it comes pretty close.