The title to this thread is confusing because I don't know what this industry is called anymore. Starting out with the big 3 networks with B&W TV, then color TV, regular theatre movies, then cable tv, now the internet with tons of providers and channels etc, my first question is, exactly what do we call this entire industry as a whole these days ? I don't know, and I don't think I've heard anyone refer to it as such. Is it so crazy that it doesn't have any real name anymore ? Will someday things consolidate and shake out and then we can call it something along the lines of "Television" again ? I understand my confusion having grown up on the 60's and not really paying much attention to the media industry, but as things are now I'm sort of confused.

My second question is, does anyone think they've been duped in the last couple years ? I started out with Netflix which was pretty good in the beginning (when I started using it), but now it's pretty barren. I was enjoying some pretty good programming, including all classic series, and I was happy with it. Then it started going downhill, I now channel surf and not finding much that is any good. So then I added Prime, and that started out good as well, and then it went downhill too. So now I'm seeing good programming and some of the classics I enjoyed previously moved to other pay-for providers, such as Paramount and others, who seemed to have bought out all of the good programming, both old and new. So now I feel like I've been abandoned, and am paying for exatly what ? I don't know. I'm paying for cable TV, netflix, and prime, but there's not much worth watching. All the good stuff, old and new, seems to have moved on to multiple other providers.

Hell if I'm going to pay for additional new programming, as if paying for three networks isn't enough already. It seems like the industry is pushing me to see how much I will pay before I tell them to take a hike. Considering the way good programming was mostly "free" for so long, I don't see how this is called progress.

So am I being taken for a sucker, or am I just stupid, like the idiot who pays good money for shoddy products because he didn't check it out beforehand ?

What do you guys think.

I’m with you. My view: prime is free but there isn’t much to watch. The occasional show of interest will come once in awhile but often I’ll scan what’s recommended and nothing of interest will be listed. I’ve resorted to watching old stuff. Lately I watched a lot of John Wayne movies. And old tv shows from the 60’s.

I pay for Viki and Netflix for the Korean content; occasionally Netflix will have something of interest but it’s intermittent - once a quarter kind of thing.

Max is free - nothing worth watching there. I just use it to watch Dune and ghibli repeatedly.

So out of 4 subscription services, I only find something of interest to watch once or twice per quarter.

I’ve turned to watching PragerU.

The generic term I come across the most is "streaming service" for all the various providers / channels. So streaming sevcice industry seems to fit.

And as for pay providers, the competition has caused most to vacillate in quality and content over the years. Which is a main reason I stay with non-pay steaming services like Tubi, Plex, Freevee, Pluto, favsome, filmrise,and many others. Yes commercials but they can easily be muted and frankly having grown up with OTA TV (yes starting in the early '50s with B&W sets), commercials have been the "norm" for so long that we have acclimated.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bald1,

I may not answer your question directly, but generally most don’t need cable or satellite with a mid or better net connection.

That said, everyone is different. I have older relatives that have no internet & watch their favorite games shows every night.

As my IT type son says, you really don’t need a ‘smart TV’. You take a modern TV then make it smart with a ‘stick’.

I have a few of the almost free plans with cell service(T-Mobile) or Amazon, though I don’t watch much.

To delve deeper, a Plex account with an IP scrambler gets you about anything. Yeah, an IT helper makes it easier.

^^^Plex account w/ IP scrambler???

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
It seems like the industry is pushing me to see how much I will pay before I tell them to take a hike. Considering the way good programming was mostly "free" for so long, I don't see how this is called progress.

So am I being taken for a sucker, or am I just stupid, like the idiot who pays good money for shoddy products because he didn't check it out beforehand ?

What do you guys think.

I think the media/entertainment provider industry (M/EPI - you heard it here first!) saw the "frog in a pot" business model that mobile phone service providers, and ISPs adopted, and said "we've been doing it all wrong, here's our chance to get a slice of the pie. All we have to do is to offer a decent product at a price that most people will buy, get them paying $xxx/mo., then turn up the heat on the frog, reduce our product quality while simultaneously raising prices slowly enough that most of our customers will opt to just stay in the pot until they are boiled."

You don't have to be an idiot to be taken in by this strategy, especially when all the providers adopt the same tactics. Of course, many other industries have seen how this works, and are hopping on the bandwagon as well. This includes Government at all levels. Welcome to the 21st Century!

quote:

Plex account w/ IP scrambler???

I suspect he means VPN to lessen tracking capabilities. Of course, you can't use the same VP end-point all the time, you have to "scramble" them, or you are defeating your own purpose. Not that there aren't other tracking opportunities, ad hoc VPNs are grossly over-sold as a means of "protection."

You nailed it - Prime, Netflix etc have moved from things I enjoy. Probably over the royalties they have to pay. Now I find myself bouncing between these 2 and Paramount, Peacock, Fox Nation, and a few more to find a couple of hours of entertainment. Much of this is because I've seen 90% of good stuff over my many years and nothing worth a shit has been produced in the last dozen years or so. How will we know when the writers strike will be over?

We trend to watch series like Home Improvement, Last Man Standing, Lucifer, Dexter and the like. We're watching Newhart now. I find it hard to find a movie that keeps my eyes away from my iPad while its playing.

Netflix went from actual movies to a bunch of their own content. I barely watch it at all and should cancel it. The comedy specials are about all it's worth now.

I have cable with HBO so I get the "Max" app included, which is pretty good. The I also get various apps because I pay for cable - like Fox streaming, and various others.

I have Prime also, mostly to get the free shipping from Amazon, so the streaming is just a little extra.

I'm not going to pay for Disney or Paramount or other specific studios.

I use Apple TV boxes, so for movies - I will often just do streaming rentals. Like $3.99 or $4.99 for recent releases.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Netflix went from actual movies to a bunch of their own content. I barely watch it at all and should cancel it.

Oft times NetFlix is the only streaming service to which we're subscribed. They don't have only their own content. E.g.: Right now we're watching the series Suits. Queued-up is Paramount's Star Trek: Into Darkness. We've watched several non-NetFlix movies and series on NetFlix.

As for NetFlix original content: They've plenty of stuff we've found to like. Currently queued-up for when we're done with Suits is The Lincoln Lawyer and (the last?) segments of The Witcher.

As for why there used to be a bunch of "mainstream" content on NetFlix and there isn't, anymore, and why NetFlix is generating so much of its own: Because the content makers and owners of catalogs found there was money to be made. So they either raised their rates so far NetFlix couldn't make money renting their stuff any longer or they pulled their content entirely and started their own streaming services.

All I know is that in 2009, TV and internet from Charter/Spectrum was $86. Now it is $216. Both figures include taxes and fees and internet download speed has increased, but that is still a 150% increase, far outstripping inflation.

I still just call it television.

I don’t feel I have been duped as I called it long ago when streaming first started happening.
I said folks would end up having tons of services in the end.

I ditched cable like 15 years or so ago and cable was $75 a month.

We currently utilize:
Netflix - $20
Disney+ - $10
Paramount+ $12
Max - Free with cell phone provider
Amazon - Free with Prime
Pluto TV - Free
Tubi TV - Free

Gives us plenty to watch and am at $42 a month still far cheaper then cable was 12 years ago. Kids rarely watch Disney anymore so I will likely not renew that next year.

Only thing I wish I could get easily/inexpensive is ESPN so the boy could watch Sportscenter in the morning before school.

If you are a sports fan and want to watch live games, it complicates things somewhat.

Still doable but more money if you subscribe to the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc. subscription services, and/or choose cable.

What's happening with me is I've gone through the entire catalog of things I care to watch on Netflix, to the point I'm rewatching some of my more favored series. Sopranos, The wire, GOT et al. Most of the new stuff doesn't fit my style. Same to some extent with Max although I've got a list of things that I'll watch there eventually. Prime? meh. Used to be pretty good but now any movies that look good, are PFV, even ones that can be found for free on other services if you care to seek them out. Hulu has an occasional gem.

I think its a matter of content overload and the ability to binge a series in a couple of nights. I'm not complaining about binge, as I find it more enjoyable to watch episodes without needed a recap. But what used to take months to go through is gone in a couple of days.

quote:

exactly what do we call this entire industry as a whole these days

Well, if they actually provided entertainment, they might be known as the 'entertainment' industry....

You would first have to understand marketing to truly understand it. Marketing of everything, not just “content”. Media companies, advertisers, are chasing that Gen Z money. They are the young who mostly don’t have children, no mortgage, and have the disposable income with their $15-20 an hour bs job, still living at home, etc. Their attention spans are short, so metric tons of money have been pulled from the film industry and ported on over to proprietary “series” on their respective platform, IE app service. If you remember Napster, and what that did to music, with everyone stealing music, getting it for free, it’s to the point now where there is no or little money in selling music. It’s the publishing that nets them money, and touring. They still want older money, IE baby boomers, Gen X, etc, but that money is less important to the powers that be then gen z and millennial money. And they eat up series. I’ll never understand it. They can’t go to a cineplex for a 100 minute movie and pay attention. They have to play with their blue screen pacifiers. But they’ll binge watch an entire series.

So with all these companies wanting their money, 1 by 1, they’ve all peeled off to make their own apps to ball hog their own content. Unlike blu rays, or cable/satellite, where you have a centralized source to view films and such, “content”, now it’s spread out via dozens of apps.

I had to make the switch January of last year in 2022. Dish finally broke my back with rate increases. It wasn’t all the movie channels I paid for, it was the basic service package that they make you subscribe to. I think at one time I had that motel 6 equivalent package (locals and a couple of cable channels) at $19.99, then $29.99, then they jacked it up to $50. That made my monthly sat bill jump over $100. With rising cost at every angle it had to go. I’m now spending under $50 and I have all the same movie channels, etc, + a few extra things like Netflix. What sucks is only a few of the apps have live channels. Showtime, which has their east and west feeds. And MGM+. They have 4 live channels. Everything else is some app and endless menus and scrolling. It’s a big old PITA. I don’t like it but the apps have way more 4k content as 4k content was almost nonexistent on the satellite. I still rent blu rays and 4k discs so I make it work. App stuff, I keep around $25 a month consistent. I added Netflix 4k for now, but I won’t keep it as I’m at $45 a month due to that right now. So best to rotate your apps. Cancel one, enable another, watch stuff, get bored, cancel it, enable another.

I remember, I don’t know, say 10 years ago. Netflix was regularly mailing me blu rays to the point I’d have them sitting for days before I watched whatever film that was. Since Covid, to this day, there just aren’t a lot of quality films coming out at all. Few and far between. Used to be I’d watch 10-15 films a month, now it’s maybe 4-5, new films, and much of that is Netflix films they produced that I haven’t had access to until now. So I’m watching films regularly, but they are 2022, 2021, 2020, etc. I’ve thought about when I get to move to my rural land, and I shouldn’t have a mortgage anymore at that point, if I’ll put a satellite up again. I’d like to but just not seeing the quality or quantity to justify it. From my view I’m seeing a ton of content being pushed out but it’s episodic stuff, lower quality, that feels like they are just putting out to put it out. The quality is shit. And I’m maxed out on series. Pretty much done with them for the most part. You know sans something truly excellent, Sopranos type stuff. They used to make a story into a movie, 90 minutes to 180 minutes and get it done. Now it’s 3 seasons and 10 episodes per season and just too much. But that’s what they want. Get you sucked into a couple of their series so you keep paying for that app. Not gonna work. Sometimes I’ll be interested and look at the time that it would take to catch up and just

Where are you renting Blu Rays and 4K discs??