What’s Left Of Cable TV Is Slowly Going To Hell
from the I-hope-you-like-reruns dept
We just got done noting how 2023 was finally the year that streaming fully surpassed traditional TV in terms of overall paying subscribers. A very obvious “cord cutting” trend that executives spent years claiming was fake or a fad is now the majority norm.
But what’s left of traditional cable TV isn’t doing so well. Broadcast TV viewing accounted for just 20.8% of total TV watching in 2023. And as companies increasingly funnel their resources and attention toward their own streaming services, traditional television channels are starting to look downright ugly.
Take, for example, USA Network. Riding a high thanks to the success of great shows like Mr. Robot just a few years ago, the channel is now just a hollow shell of itself, mindlessly airing repeats:
“Viewership is way down, and USA’s original programming department is gone. The channel has had just one original scripted show this year, and it is not exclusive to the network — it also airs on another channel. During one 46-hour stretch last week, USA showed repeats of NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for all but two hours, when it showed reruns of CBS’ “NCIS” and “NCIS: Los Angeles.”
The trend is the same across TBS, Comedy Central, MTV, and other channels, which have all become more like zombies than competently managed television channels. Much of this is just the inevitable impact of streaming’s rise, and not necessarily a bad thing. Though given consumers still pay the same rates for cable TV, this sort of half-assery will only accelerate the transition from traditional cable to streaming.
That said, many of the executives who ran cable TV into the ground have jumped ship to streaming, and are repeating many of the same mistakes without having learned much of anything from history or experience. It’s why we’re increasingly seeing shittier streaming product catalogs, higher prices, pointless mergers, steady layoffs, and no shortage of annoying efforts to nickel-and-dime existing customers.
At the heart of the problem sits Wall Street’s myopic thirst for improved quarterly returns at any cost. It’s simply not good enough to provide people with a quality product everybody likes; the need for improved quarterly returns inevitably results in a quest for scale and growth that always cut corners and sacrifices product quality, opening the door, once again, to yet another round of disruption.
So as cable TV heads to its grave, streaming is intent on becoming more like cable. That in turn opens the door wider to alternative options like Twitch, TikTok, and whatever comes next, as the never-ending cycle continues.
Filed Under: cable, cable tv, competition, cord cutting, streaming, trends
Comments on “What’s Left Of Cable TV Is Slowly Going To Hell”
Have it your way
Would you like us to put Law & Order on repeat for you (cable), or would you like to do it yourself (stream)?
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… or are you a luddite who wants to watch the episodes in a specific, non-standard order by using DVDs?
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“Re-run channels” and marathons are not new. That’s how syndication works. A series puts out like 24 episodes a year; if it’s popular, within a few years some lesser network will be airing one or two every weeknight. I noticed it nearly 30 years ago; watched a lot of early Simpsons episodes (over and over again) that way, and various other sitcoms. Sometimes the devolution into a re-run channel happens very gradually.
I suppose it sucks when a good network turns into a re-run network, but looking at “one 46-hour stretch” is a stupid way to evaluate that. The whole stretch between Christmas and New Years is generally crap, for example, and you’ll have no trouble finding several re-run marathons. And there’s rarely anything new in the summer. (It’s like the executives have always been trying to make young people hate TV networks, by ensuring there’s never anything on when they’re most able and likely to watch.)
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USA was built and designed as syndication. As a paramount provider they were the go to for 70s-90s action, science fiction, horror films int the mid afternoon, and the Up All Night spine of the station.
Star Trek, A-Team, Friday the 13th.
And wrestling.
Where they were different, from the rest, is that shows were in order (most of the time).
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Or, watch something else and not pay for the Law & Order streaming service if you don’t want it?
It’s weird when people forget that last option after they’ve been given it.
As much as I hate to say it, USA does have an audience–it’s people like my 67 year old mother, who do want to watch NCIS and L&O on repeat but who don’t want to mess with streaming services.
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I know some channels like that, and you can tell that’s their intended audience because the commercials are for hearing aids, dentures, stair lifts, retirement homes, and long distance services.
I’d be fine with USA Network running reruns all day if it actually reran its most popular original shows instead of SVU and Chicago Fire/PD. Like, why not run a Burn Notice marathon on a given weekend or something?
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Or In Plain Sight, or Suits, or White Collar, or Royal Pains or any of the other good shows they produced.
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Because they have to pay more residuals for the popular shows.
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For their own shows? Have their Hollywood Accountants not properly set up a perpetual “loss” for them?
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I’m no accountant, but my understanding is that quite often shows are created by “3rd parties” who “licence” shows to the networks even if technically they’re fully owned and operated by the network.
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That’s the basis of the accounting trickery that allows various charges to ensure that the show never makes a profit, while the licensor is rolling in money.
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Those ‘popular’ shows had a set audience. And no history of expansion. They cost more money in royalties, and don’t bring in the viewership of say, TNG, or L&O.
Many people confuse dedicated popularity with expandable popularity. Shows like these don’t keep people around for the next hour.
It’s funny you mention Twitch because yesterday I noticed a new invasive type of ad that appears in a sidebar alongside the stream. There were way more ads as well. I think it’s going down the same path.
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I noticed the sidebar ad, too. According to some Reddit posts I’ve read, that’s been an option for over a year, but Twitch apparently made it default to “on” yesterday (ostensibly to rake in more ad revenue during the boom in viewership because of the new changes to its nudity policies).
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The side banner ad?
It was on mobile Twitch for quite a while. Along with the more disruptive 15-second ads…
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I think it’s going down the same path.Same case for youtube.
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I don’t use twitch but you can pay a tiny fee to go advert free on YouTube.
Faster pussycat!
I think the cycle is not just continuing but accelerating with each iteration having a shorter lifespan.
Pretty soon you won’t just change channels at the touch of a button, you’ll change distribution mechanism.
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Fortunately Xeno’s Paradox means that while distribution mechanism changes will inevitably come faster than you could possibly react, they won’t cross the threshhold into negative time.
Or maybe they already have, and what we’d seen before was the fallout. The singularity approaches?
TBS?
20 years ago, a classmate referred to TBS as “The Shawshank Channel”. I hadn’t really noticed till then, because I wasn’t used to having access to “premium” channels; but in the months we had access, The Shawshank Redemption did air surprisingly often.
So, I’m not really sure that’s new. I don’t recall ever watching original programming on any of these named networks, though I did see Mr. Robot via streaming. Weren’t cable-only networks always a bit of a niche?
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Reminds me of how a decade or two before that, TBS was “The Beastmaster Station”. (See also: HBO = “Hey, Beastmaster’s On!”)
That’s mostly because the Turner networks bought the airing rights to the film and ran it regularly. The constant rerunning is the primary reason why the film went from being a box office dud to being considered one of the greatest films ever made.
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That was our guess too. “Whoever sold them those rights must’ve underestimated how far they’d push ‘unlimited’.”
I had to look up your Beastmaster reference. I only knew it as a series contemporary with the Shawshank reruns, but you must mean the 1982 film.
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I didn’t have the same experience growing up in the UK, but it does make me happy that an independent talent like Don Coscarelli got his work into so many homes simply by being around at the time cable was being distributed in the US.
Similarly with Shawshank – it was considered a flop on first release and an anomaly in Stephen King’s career, but it crept up to be though as a classic.
same old
streaming is the new cable
ever increasing prices, same redundant content, only this time you get to pay twice: once for internet access, and once again for the streaming service/content
yay
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Except that with the Internet you also Have YouTube, Twitch, TikTok etc. and subscriptions are optional.
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And then there are all the other distractions like board games, video games, books, spending time with family, creating works of your own, and even going out to do things.
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yes Stephen, and water is wet…
Who here didn’t know that there were other ACTIVITIES other than watching TV?
Here’s something else everyone already knew Stephen: “yo butt IS yo crack”
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Except, you choose which services to pay for and don’t have to pay for channels you never use, you’re paying for internet to make this inane comment and most people have it with or without streaming, and so on.
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I wish I were you, Paul:
Never having to deal with price increases…
Paying the same price for internet access your whole life…
I guess Netflix, Disney +, and them, only raised prices on the rest of us poors…
Always having the free time to combat logic here on Techdirt…
You’re so blessed.
Tell Moms I said hi when you leave the basement for lunch 🙂
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The other argument is most of these services are increasing prices below the inflation index. Sure, they could raise prices every few months, a few cents here, a few cents there. But then you’d complain about that too.
I remember 75c premium fuel and 50c bread and 10c apples. And I’m not “that” old.
Business isn’t charity. Streaming is far less expensive in increasing than most other things. Netflix etc costs less than a cable premium station and has more choices.
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“Netflix etc costs less than a cable premium station and has more choices.”
It’s also optional. Many people and and do cancel their sub, and resub when they want to binge something. There’s no minimum contract. I understand being annoyed at the price hikes, but you have a choice other than to keep paying them – unless you really want to watch stuff on there, in which case I’d say it’s still less than one weekly rental from Blockbuster used to be and way less than cable was.
Re: Re: Re:3
You misunderstood my point. I see no issue with the price increases in streaming. They are well below inflation rates.
And for those that do complain, like it or not…! Prime has become a leader in genre offerings. Studios once limited to low run DVDr releases are now reaching the masses (eg Brain Damage and Insight). Whole industries not previously known to the general public are reaching U.S. homes at an amazing rate.
Korean film on Netflix, French animation on Prime, Italian thrillers on Tubi.
All of this costs money to bring to us. An extra dollar or two a month, $12 a year, 24?
Come on ‘people’! The value is there. We have more options for less cost than in history.
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“Never having to deal with price increases”
I deal with price increases, either by paying for the product I use or going elsewhere. Which is easier today now that I don’t have everything bundled together in a single place, and because there’s choice unlike some places in the US I’ve read about.
“Paying the same price for internet access your whole life…”
There’s been a slight rise in my internet cost over the last few yers, but the deal has also gone from 150Mbps to 1Gbps over the same period.
“I guess Netflix, Disney +, and them, only raised prices on the rest of us poors…”
Did Tubi and Plex and other free services disappear, or do you just insist on paying the services you disagree with? There’s a cancel button if you don’t like their prices.
“Always having the free time to combat logic here on Techdirt…”
I’ll combat it when I see it, but until then I’ll just note that you’re apparently paying a premium for other entertainment yet you’re hrre on this free site…
They still have that?
I have this cool new thing called The Internet where I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want, for free!
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it’s not “free”; there’s that monthly ISP bill.
now if we could get broadband internet access paid for via commercials, like (non-cable) TV is paid for via commercials…
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Apparently, NetZero did do DSL for a while, but I guess not for free; Wikipedia says they basically ended free access in 2001 (unless used for under 40 hours a month, which is almost nothing compared to the 744 hours of a 31-day month; oddly, It seems that they still exist, but have changed from an ISP to a VPN provider). Remember that advertisements cost a lot more in those days.
Of course, the constant cat-and-mouse game was finding ways to use NetZero without ads wasting valuable (especially in those days) screen real estate. There were lots of ways. Virtual machines would’ve made it almost trivial, had they existed; as would multi-monitor cards with an unused port (keep the ads on your “third monitor”).
The realistic way toward actually-free internet, other than leeching off a neighbor: community broadband networks. When the services get to be 1-10 gigabits per second, some companies have found DSL-speed service to be so cheap they’ve given it away for free. Even Google Fiber had a “free” 5 Mbit/s option in its early days (considered “broadband” till 2015), excepting that the installation fee was $300.
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NetZero saved the ad images to a folder on your computer. While the app would still take up some real estate, you could just swap out the files for blank image files with the same names so it would just show a block of black instead of ads. Small victories.
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If you want that hell, go for it, but unskippable commercials while you’re trying to do anything else is not really “free”.
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In the last day or two, a large number of USA Network series have been popping up in “the usual places”. I guess it’s kind of like how stuff by a well-known actor will pop up when the actor dies.
rural isolation
Thinking about this and the poor broadband in much of the country, this would tend to isolate those folks even further.
I'm SURE that will work out for them!
Yeah, less original content and sky high prices for a service that’s infested with ads and should be free…I am SURE people will still want to pay $100+/mo for that crap! Surely.
Those “mistakes” made them rich. Why wouldn’t they repeat them?
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Exactly.
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Because it was never the mistakes making them rich, it was the rank and file gutting themselves in the name of the company’s bottom line, and the yes-men surrounding the CEOs convincing them that everything they touched turned to gold.
Now they’re repeating the mistakes, and acting confused because the same mistakes they made aren’t resulting in all the numbers going up. The tide has gone out, and they’ve been revealed to be completely naked.
Unfortunately instead of giving these leaders the mockery they richly deserve, there’s still a significant number of people who insist on praising their nudity as strategic genius.
piracy
i wanted to watch a sports event on ESPN. I refuse to pay for cable but would pay a small fee if ESPN wa streamable as a stand alone channel. Its not due to the idiocy of the executives there
so i put the tricorn hat on. net result—I watched what i wanted and ESPN got zero dollars from me
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Meanwhile, ESPN is one of the commonly given reasons for ditching cable, as you pay for it whether or not you watch a single sport with the cable package system. Some people whine about the cost of subscribing to multiple streaming services, but a least you know that your money is going to what you watch rather than ESPN, Fox or whatever religious channels that you never watch.
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The story I heard regarding ESPN is that they pushed very hard in the early days to be considered part of the basic cable package that went to everyone on cable. As part of basic cable they get $x per customer per month. In exchange for being on basic cable ESPN agreed to not stream/be on the internet their content and that of they did stream content they would not have to be on basic cable every month.
Before cord cutting was a thing this gave ESPN massive amounts of money and they thought it would keep rising forever because no one expected basic cable user numbers to go down.
ESPN then paid big $$$ for the rights to many sports over many years. Then cord cutting started and their “assured” revenue stream from basic cable was no longer seen to be perpetual or constantly growing. They then started laying off many of their mid tier personalities and some of the bigger ones as well. It’s why a lot of content on ESPN now is just sports personalities talking about sports instead of actual sports.
So ESPN is stuck right now because if they go the streaming route then they will lose all the basic cable monthly revenue they get from the cable companies which while failing is still more than they think they could get via streaming and the money from people buying the ESPN package on their local cable providers.
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They’re stuck now? What, did they negotiate a 30-year contract in the late 1990s?
I can’t have much sympathy for the executives who put ESPN in that position. Their job is basically to predict the trends, and it was obvious to many people on university dormitory networks around 2002 that cable TV was on the way out. One couldn’t help but notice it when going home to cable every summer, after 8 months of file-sharing. And within a few years, many of those “summer homes” would get cable-company-provided DVRs, freeing the older residents from having to think about channels or schedules, or to watch ads. At which point the ads got more aggressive (appearing during shows, on top of them), hastening the decline…
Either the ESPN people weren’t paying attention—to predict trends, you need to look at young people, not the middle-aged and elderly—or they thought for some reason that “sports are different” and always would be.
As for the USA Network, I looked through Wikipedia’s list of their shows, and I had watched a few from that post-cable time period. But I had no idea “USA” was an actual television network; it was just a name that appeared on some shows I got from… wherever (sometimes Netflix).
The channels listed have always been that way. Literally never known for their original programming.
Cable TV is becoming a better deal by the day as more streaming providers push unwanted ads in your face with small, limited content libraries.
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Starting to wonder why I read this chicken little website anymore.
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Well, it’s clearly not for the accurate reporting since this “chicken little” situation is one they’re constantly being proven accurate about.
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Wrong. USA alone has had dozens of original series, starting in 1986. Wikipedia has the list. And yes, they were known for their original programming, particularly in the ’90s.
I’m sure you’ll now say, “But they all suck!” But that’s irrelevant, and goalpost moving. It’s also wrong, because Ray Bradbury theater was the shit, and Silk Stalkings was a guilty pleasure.
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That’s like 1 or 2 a year. It’s not nothing, but it’s also not a tenth of what a well-known network puts out.
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For what it’s worth, neither of the shows you mentioned actually originated on USA. Both moved from other networks and were continued by USA. Wikipedia classifies them as “original” USA programming; I disagree.
Wikipedia also says it had “a block called USA Live, which carried reruns of Love Connection and The People’s Court”—in 1995. It’s pretty egregious to brand a rerun block as “live”, and that seems to be just one of many rerun blocks they were known for. So maybe it would be better to say the USA Network is going back to hell.
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Not true. In addition to all of its own original shows, USA Network is also widely known for being the home of what is billed as “the longest-running weekly episodic television show in history”: WWE Raw. (Which could soon change after WWE finishes the negotiations for its TV rights. USA will still be getting Smackdown, though.)
I said it once, I’ll say it again:
And the cycle’s gonna continue and continue until either they stop listening to wall street or they no longer exist.
Likely the latter.
Not New
Back in 1970 – before even VHS, let alone the internet – Larry Niven in his story about flash mobs (his invention) said in an aside that live TV had degenerated into nothing but live news. Right now, about the only things I watch live are the local news and some sports, maybe events like award shows. Even this stuff, I will likely start a bit later while recording, or pause for breaks, and then be able to skip commercials.
The ideal for the future is like YouTube -everything and anything on demand to stream in one place. Content will be made by “creators” who simply upload it to the service, much as movies used to be made by assorted companies (studios and independents) who then tried to get them distributed in theatres. (Ah, the Goode Olde Days).
We’ll see too, the liberation from the mandatory half-hour or 1 hour TV format or the 2-3 hour theatrical format. Everything from 7-second video to skit-length episodes to “miniseries” streamed as a days-long stream that you start and stop as you wish. If you want to see every episode of L&O ever made, you can do it on your own schedule.
I also anticipate services – I’ll call it “InstaTok” where the service will stream videos etc. but not host them – simply load them from another service (like YouTube) but own the algorithm that analyzes your preferences and suggests things to you – including AI summaries of “why you’ll like these ones…” Jeeves or Siri or whoever not only arranging your social life, but your viewing habits, while automatically brewing the coffee or ordering the pizza. The really smart ones will mute the commercials for you, or buffer so as to skip, or use AI to cover the annoying pop-up commercials during the show.
At the rate “purchased” content keeps vanishing, content disappears mid season to another platform, content you were looking forward gets shelved for a tax write off there is going to be a change.
Some upstart is going to start selling content on plastic discs, at realistic prices, with closed captions through the mail. What you buy will be yours, not until the whims of some exec says kill it to make a buck.
big daddy
with streaming becoming just like big daddy cable! it is only a matter of time before the sheeple get tired of that boot on the neck and ether demand better! or start sail’n the high sea’s! yo ho mother fucker! there’s booty to be plundered out there in them high sea’s!
Strange facts
How many know that:
There are over 400 released movies every year.
That There are Some movies and shows that 2nd and 3rd parts.
They keep trying to REDO, old shows. And Failing.
They are as bad as the Beginning of Disney, and hardly created anything NEW. JUST rewrite the old stories, and Dont pay the artist that created it.
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Because you have some brilliant minds who are convinced we all want to see remakes of things that made them lots of money rather than taking a risk on something “unproven” where they might lose money.
Blair Witch Project was ground breaking & then hollywood just kept making it over and over and killed it.
Deadpool almost didn’t get made & well it was box office gold compare that to how many X-Men movies they made that were just meh & managed to get worse with each new version.
Hollywood is making bank, despite what the accounting says, and they are terrified that a movie won’t make enough to please shareholders they just make the easy safe play of lets remake that thing we’ve redone 10 times b/c it will make money. Then they blame pirates for bad turnouts rather than admit that the ‘Aliens Vs Predator Holiday Special’ was a bad idea.
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“Then they blame pirates for bad turnouts rather than admit that the ‘Aliens Vs Predator Holiday Special’ was a bad idea.”
I would absolutely watch that.
In the meantime, the fix for Hollywood is for people to watch the things they want to watch instead of whatever is being pushed by marketing. Don’t like remakes, sequels and so on? Go and pay for the many movies that don’t fit those categories. If enough people support original or independent cinema, there will be less production line fodder on the screens. The suits are risk averse because people don’t watch the stuff that takes chances in the same numbers as the stuff that copies what they did last time.
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I hadn’t even heard about ACME before they decided to kill it & I would have risked the outside world to see it.
Of course they discovered if you shoot the creatives to please the beancounters they start cancelling meetings with you & suddenly you have no new projects to cancel for a tax write-off.
Re: Re: Re: Wouldnt it be INTERESTING
If they Made a movie.
HIRED actors and Paid them.
BASED on the Gross profit of the movie for the First month of RELEASE.
WOW what a concept.
Re: Re: Re: waiting for
Fantastic beasts, to make more…
AND if you Like B movies, TROMA ENT. is still making them. LOTS of them.
And a few other companies like them FULL MOON ent.
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If you want more of those things, stop whining about major studios and pay to see the things you want to see more of. It’s been a fantastic couple of years for horror and other genre cinema being profitable, and there’s more to come.
If you like supporting Lloyd Kaufman and Charles Band, why would you care if Warner are wasting their money?
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The cinema practice was dying before the pandemic. There will always be theatres but the idea of them ever reaching mid 20s levels again is ridiculous.
Home technology has surpassed the theatre setup. For the cost of 10 movies, (<$200) you can have 7.1 sound at home. For the cost of 20 films you can buy an 80” 4k tv.
Yes, for the social personality, some films are better on the big screen. Laughing along with the comedy, the streaks of terror for a slasher, etc. watching Jon Rambo slice through his enemies. And the Avengers doing what they do as the audience cheers.
But there’s the other side. The sticky floors, dirty seats. Constant talking, babies crying, the people stepping on you trying to get bye. The $5 hot dog and $10 drink.
Not forgetting about the constant green mask surveillance. Dude, stop staring at me, it’s creepy.
I can see how why Josh hawkey wrote it into his fel my streaming bill where the end user is not committing a crime
The programming fees local stations want to charge cable companies are putting them out of business and the pirate sites in places like China, Russia, and India are going to be their only option
In Ketchikan when their cable tv company wil l have to shut down these sites which are a dime a dozen I could a lot new customers for these sites
To brung down the cost of cable congress needs to repeal the cable act of 1992 and eliminate these costs
Eliminarte the retransmission fees for local th stations and cable companies having to pay copyright fees on top of all that and we can bring cable costs down to a same level
Pirate iptv is not going away any time soon and American laws have no jurisdiction abroad
Re: They need
To put a stop to MOST of the major corps trying to Suck the money out of our pockets.
Hint. Most fruits and veggies at harvast, farmers are getting about $0.03 per pound. Think of that when you pay $1.89 at McD’s for 1/3 pound.
Then there is the idea that the USA exports over 60% of some of our crops. Wheat and grains and corn, mostly. And the cost of Cereal and Cookie Prices are over $3-4 for about 1 pound. How much processing can you do??
For Wall Street, businesses make only one product. It isn’t quality programming, or a nifty app, or clothes for your kid, or healthcare. Businesses make wealth. They make the rich richer. That’s it. (If you followed the recent crackdown on ESGs, this point was made pretty explicitly, if for disingenuous reasons. Doing anything other than increasing growth is “political.” Because no one is ever political about their investments…)
When you grasp the true purpose of businesses, and the shifting marketing strategies involved, many more things in the world begin to make sense: the literally crazy talk about AI, schizophrenic management jerking employees around every other quarter and wasting their time aka “pivoting” and “re-orgs,” etc.
Re: When they
Took this to court.
the responsibility of a Corp and stocks is ONLY TO THE STOCK HOLDER TO MAKE MONEY.
Not to be fair, nice, considerate or Any moral Attitude. ITS ONLY to make money.
Even tho, the only ones making money are INTERNAL SHARES. NOT those given to consumers that have NO ownership attached.
Eventually most “programming” will consist of an endless loop of commercials and PSA’s, with no actual “shows” or “events” whatsoever. I’ll watch the same amount- NONE.
Whether via streaming, cable or OTA, everything has too many commercials for my taste. I suffer through them to watch sports, but then only with the sound turned off, and some music playing instead. Having to LOOK at people like Dick Vitale is bad enough…
The future is here
The future of content is in mixed platforms like Amazon Prime and Feed platform.
Right now such services offer what cable was missing!
A flat reasonable rate for a large volume of content; and à la cart options to expand as wanted.
Watch, rent, subscribe, “buy”.