Huckleberries Online

I want my free TV!

Posted by Cindy

Dec. 29, 2009 5:04 p.m. • 10 comments

NEW YORK – For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer.

The business model is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and the local stations that carry the networks’ programming. Cable TV and the Web have fractured the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming.

That will play out in living rooms across the country. The changes could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills, as the networks and local stations squeeze more fees from pay-TV providers such as Comcast and DirecTV for the right to show broadcast TV channels in their lineups. The networks might even ditch free broadcast signals in the next few years. Instead, they could operate as cable channels — a move that could spell the end of free TV as Americans have known it since the 1940s.

Is this Rupert Murdoch’s fault?

10 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

keithincda on December 29 at 6:55 p.m.
well, his OR the Republicans, I’m sure.

/sarcasm off
PatrickH on December 29 at 7:17 p.m.
Its Steve Jobs fault
Cis on December 29 at 7:34 p.m.
So those who are on SS (the low end of it) won’t be able to afford to watch television? Sure hope it isn’t in my life time.
LarrySpencer on December 29 at 7:44 p.m.
I’m ready!

I haven’t watched TV since it went digital last spring.

Free your mind- kill your TV.
spokelooneh on December 29 at 10:19 p.m.
Mark this moment in blog history, I completely agree with Larry Spencer.
spokelooneh on December 29 at 11:01 p.m.
According to an article in the New Yorker, not available except via paid subscription, Google captures 40% of all advertising dollars spent on the Web.

Google’s total revenues, almost all of it from advertising, are 2/3’s as much as the TOTAL amount of advertising dollars spent in EVERY single newspaper in the country. And growing.

Television advertising in all TV venues is about $70B a year. Google’s revenues are $22B (2008).

Broadcast “Network” television revenues were $34B in 2008

The time’s they are a changin’, somebody once said. Indeed.
marmitetoasty on December 30 at 4:13 a.m.
Everyone that owns a telly here in Britain, irrespective of if you have cable or sky, HAS to have a ‘telly license’ its about £140 ($280) a year and even if where you live just has a tiny portable telly or you have 4 or 5 big widescreens the price is the same…..its not on how many tellys you have…. you can have 1 or 10, you just have to have one license….. the telly license subscription pays for the BBC 1 and BBC 2 channels which do not have adverts every 20 minutes like on the ITV sides……without cable or sky, our normal telly has 5 channels….

anyways, I dont know if you have to have telly licences over there…… and if you have a telly and DONT have a yearly license you get a knock from the ‘telly detector’ people and get something like a £2000 ($4000) fine……. you cant even say, yes we have a telly but dont use it….. if you have a telly in your house then you HAVE to by law have a telly license….

x
lewis8457 on December 30 at 9:40 a.m.
After the digital switch over and buying a converter and a smart antenna I realized over the air TV sucks. Most of the viewing time was spent adjusting the antenna. I knew I had to go to dish or cable but could afford neither.

So I got high speed Internet from Qwest killing two birds with one stone. Now I watch TV over the Internet. I can watch my favorite shows when ever I want, and watch shows that I could never view over the air because they are on cable channels. Like comedy central and Showtime. I can also watch movies for free I recently watched Aviator, 2012 and Terminator for free. Go to Hulu.com to check it out.

There are actual TV stations on the net that charge from 2 dollars month to 11 dollars a year for full-featured TV.
Kage_Mann on December 30 at 9:50 a.m.
TV’s can last a long time.My last TV cost me $330 at Costco and I bought it back when I was a young man.Now, I’m a middle-aged guy, hoping it will last until I get S.S.
shanusmaximus on December 30 at 10:30 a.m.
It is nothing but control and consolidation of information for propaganda purposes. Both governmental and market based, which usually go hand in hand anymore.

@screwballs

You are correct. The internet is the way to go. I can find almost literally anything I want and I can watch it whenever I want. Whether it be Leave It To Beaver, Gunsmoke or older Fox shows…I still am trying to locate some Morton Downey Jr. (the start of trash TV) shows. But I will find it……

@marmitetoasty

Britain is a socialist nightmare verging on a police state. I see England as the canary in the mineshaft and the canary is twitching at the bottom of it’s cage. Have you seen the new British telly series? Smile you are on CCTV!!!

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About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.