What’s Next for Cable Television?

You don't "consume" telecommunications services, you utilize them.

The service is still there when you're done with it. Let's not fall into the industry trap of this misnomer.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consume

You watch TV, you consume a sandwich.

On topic : I don't think the cable companies can match the 99.999% reliability that the telcos routinely deliver just yet. My cable goes out now and then but my phone always works.

What is next for Cable TV? It is time for it to die! The internet is eviscerating it. I dumped my cable over a year ago, and increased my bandwidth. If I want to view something, I will find it, down load it and feed it the TV. Please spare me from any comments, regarding copyright infringement, etc. I did not place media on the Web. I is there, and any one can access it. Some people will think that this is a lot or work. To me, channel surfing, was a lot of work. Not only was it tedious, but frustrating. For what I was paying for all those channels, I found nothing but duplication and the same thing being run to death. The massive irony is, that my cable provider is my internet provider.

Can you imagine a large company wating for a cable guy who will be there two days from today between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00?

If I did that to any of my clients, after they threw me out the door, I would be shot and piddled on, and not necessarily in that order.

When I was a youngster, there were a few very good shows on Television- Jackie Gleason's "Honeymooners", "Gunsmoke", "All In the Family" (in its early seasons, before the Fonz was elevated to a major character), "60 Minutes", Walter Cronkite...They all had a common thread, in my view- they were fresh, unpredictable. After a few years, I pretty much had the story line after the first five minutes of any new television show. I had 4 channels to chose from, and what they were offering was...noise. So I gave cable a try. now I had 30 channels of ...noise. I did experience the Kennedy assassination (John, not Ted) and 9/11 through live TV broadcast, so there have been some exceptions to my general assessment that content provided on television is mostly irrelevant, but, for the most part, I see the entire entertainment industry choking to death on irrelevancy. But, then again, I do believe the TV industry most likely considers me irrelevant, so my opinion probably isn't worth the time it has taken me to enter it here...

You are most correct. Now there is something like 500 channels and still nothing is on.

The garbage that they generally pump out is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. The industry will keep pumping out this stuff, because it is cheap. only when enough people say no and the revenues start to dry up, they might, rethink about quality. There are some descent shows and programs out there, It is just hard to find them, as they are buried in the "noise".

You can join the movement, to dump TV, cable, etc and just get what you want for entertainment, enlightenment, etc of the Web. I have not had a TV/ cable for over a year. At first I thought I might miss it as I grew up with TV. Not a chance!

One disgruntled customer is irrelevant to them, but if is in the millions. Things will change.

i had problem after problem with my cable co. nothing ever got resolved until i complained to the BPU,wow this got their full attention. you would be amazed how fast the cable co responded and fixed the problems,also knocked my bill down to boot. you need to document everything prior to making a complaint. funny thing,i have not watched TV in about 2 years,i would rather read on my computer.

My point exactly about TV.

One of the main drawbacks for cable is, if someone hits a utility pole, it rips everyone's TV set out through the wall into the street!