@chiclets wrote:
I do not like having to pay for TV, or any type of programing.
TV was once free for all to enjoy. Today it is something you have to budget for.
In today's market place it is difficult for PBS to survive, and PBS has good programs.
I do not buy anything outside "the Box", and dislike the bill needed for watching TV.
With an antenna TV can still be largely free. I get fifty some channels using my antenna in the Philly marketplace. You don't get the cable channels, but the over the air channels you can get for free other than the cost of the antenna. And truth be told, you tend to get a better picture than through satellite or cable where the signal is often compressed.
It's not just PBS that's having a hard time surviving, but pretty much every channel. Advertising is what historically kept channels alive. Back when there were a very limited number of channels it was easy for advertisers to target their audience and with very, very limited compeitition the stations that were getting good raitngs could ask pretty much whatever price they wanted for advertising.
Now, with hundreds of channels and a fragmented audience the advertising revenue gets divided up a lot more. Back when there were only three channels (ABC, NBC, and CBS) all of the advertising dollars were split between the three. Now with hundreds of channels that revenue is split into smaller and smaller chunks making survival more challenging for every channel.
If the cable/satellite companies went to an al a carte model and let viewers pick which channels they watched and paid for, probably eighty percent of the current channels would disappear from a lack of revenue. The only way many of those channels survive is by having their channel bundled with other channels and getting revenue from the bundle.
I pay for Spanish language channels and kid channels that I never watch. I pay for music channels I never listen to. I have no choice. They all come bundled. If everyone only paid for the channels they watched, many of those channels would disappear. To a large extent cable and satellite providers have created a kind of welfare state for channels that can't survive on their own. Their desire to have the largest channel count has created and supported channels that have a very limited audience and could not survive without the bundles.
I truly believe we are headed for a future where everything is streamed and many/most of the channels we now get will disappear due to a lack of viewers. The lunacy of those of us who know no Spanish having to pay for Spanish channels will come to an end. It's not done in any other business, only cable/satellite. Imagine going into a grocery store to buy a loaf of bread and being told you have to buy these other nine items before they'll sell you a lof of bread. That's largely how cable/satellite works and it's not a good model. We could see that model changing in the very, very near future.
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