More Choices, Less Access: How the Boob Tube Cartel Is Milking Us Dry

October 4, 2024, 2:19 PM

Welcome to 2024, where despite advanced technology, cable TV, satellite TV, and thousands of streaming services and the internet at our fingertips, it’s actually harder than ever to watch what we want. Think we’ve evolved from the cable days? Think again.

The TV mob bosses – the TV cartel – yes, I’m looking at you, Peacock, Bally Sports, and Amazon Prime, have made sure our choices are vast, but our access? Practically nil unless you want to shell out unlimited money to watch what you want. And you also get the pleasure of spending all day trying to find out how and where to watch what you want even if you are willing to shell out the extra cash.

There are PLENTY of greedy folks in the TV cartel – television networks and studios like CNN and NBC, media conglomerates like Paramount and Disney, cable TV, streaming platforms, satellite services like DISH and DirecTV, greedy sports tyrants like ESPN, NBC Sports, MLB and NFL. And that’s the problem. There are too many hands in the cookie jar. They are have their deals with each other and they all squeeze as much money out of their customers and potential customers as they can.

Streaming struggles and blackout blues.

Let me set the stage on a personal level – and this is just what I’ve encountered in the past week. Here I am, a Michigander who lives in Northern Lower Michigan, just trying to enjoy a Michigan State football game. Like I said, I live in Michigan so it’s not like I’m out in Oregon trying to find the MSU game. MSU is playing Ohio State, no less. You’d think the game would be easy to find, right? Wrong. The TV cartel decided it would exclusively be streaming on Peacock.

Then I started looking around to catch a Detroit Tigers game since they have clinched a playoff spot for the first time in 10 years. But the games are not to be found because I don’t have Bally Sports. You see, I have DISH. Bally Sports (previously Fox Sports Network Detroit) has been blacked out by DISH since about the time before the wheel was invented. And no, I’m not going to pay extra to the MLB or HULU+ LIVE or anyone else for something, in my opinion, that should be “free” on network TV in a regional or local market.

Speaking of HULU, that brings me to a ‘Little House on the Prairie’ TV special I wanted to watch last week that was only on Cozi which is a streaming service that you have to get through other streaming services like HULU or YouTube TV. I had ordered the trial version of HULU since their website said I would get Cozi. Nope. The Little House special would cost an additional $80 because I’d have to upgrade to HULU+ LIVE. After about two hours or research and going through YouTube TV’s verification process, I was finally able to sign up my free trial with YouTube TV (warning – their free trial is only for five days) and I was able to watch the special – and then I cancelled the free trial IMMEDIATELY afterwards so I didn’t owe them a ton of money.

The Middleman TV mafia: how they rob us blind.

The current state of affairs involving our access to television shows, movies and sports is absolutely ridiculous. The technology is there, folks. We should be able to get access to ANYTHING directly through the content creator on a per-view basis (not a subscription) whether that means from a network or the production company or whoever.

You’d think that by now, in 2024, we could watch whatever we want to watch. But no. What we’re dealing with is a middleman TV mafia – folks who siphon every last penny out of us. You can’t just have cable or satellite TV anymore either if you want to watch the stuff you used to be able to watch with your $250 monthly package. You have to add streaming services. By the time you are done dealing with all of the folks in the TV cartel, your monthly bill could be sitting around $400 or more. And then you still get the pleasure of watching ads every six minutes – unless of course you want to pay even MORE money for ad-free viewing.

When you’re missing Blockbuster, you know it’s bad.

Remember Blockbuster? Good times. You walked in, found what you wanted, paid once, and actually got to watch it. Antrobo10 on Facebook nailed it when he said if you’d told him in 2004 that in 20 years he’d have to Google which of the nine million streaming services had his movie and then have to pay extra for it on top of the regular streaming package he already has, he’d have laughed in your face. You seriously need to watch his rant about all of this. It’s a classic.

Antrobo10, like myself, points out that we are paying more and getting less. Kinda like everything else during Bidenflation, huh?

According to mntn research, which provides in-depth analysis of the streaming television, video, and media landscape, a study from Neilsen found that nearly half of all streaming users in the U.S. report feeling overwhelmed by the amount of programming at their fingertips, with 46% reporting that it’s difficult to find the content they want to watch. Maybe that’s because there are more than 800,000 unique program titles available on streaming platforms.

The greedy TV mob needs to go.

At this point, it’s clear – the TV mafia is holding us hostage. We’ve got the technology to watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it, but the gatekeepers are charging tolls at every turn. Once again, we need direct access to the content creators so that we can just pay them for the things that we want to watch and not the additional 800,000 shows that we don’t.

Streaming used to be a good idea when they were charging $3.99 or even $8.99 for a monthly subscription but now they are moving their prices up towards what it costs for a cable or satellite package. $79.99 for a streaming subscription? Seriously??!!

This is the bottom line: If I want to watch the first episode of MASH* and I want to pay $2.50 for it, it should be available without having to sign up for a $80 streaming service. If I want a random football game out of Rhode Island, why can’t I toss a few bucks at the people who actually recorded the event?

Until our television utopia arrives and the TV cartel is broken up, it looks like we will have to keep Googling, sighing, and paying ransom money to watch anything that should be at our fingertips.

BY STEVE GRUBER

Originally posted on Steve Gruber.com ➜

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