Why Traditional TV is Dying.

It’s f’ing expensive, with just three or four months worth of cable bills(Avg bill is $103 per month) I could buy a nice tv to watch my shitty cable on. Think of gasoline as cable and the car is the tv… holy shit.. just think if one month of gas cost you 30% of the total price of the car. You probably wouldn’t buy the car? You probably wouldn’t purchase the gas? Some of you will understand that comparison and some of you won’t. Same.

Scotty, what are you suggesting? The TV makers are doing pretty good right now. Sure they are.. You have idiots like myself who purchase TV’s just to watch Twitch streams on 40″ panels(yes, I do this) or even Netflix on 50″ panels in their bedrooms(yes, I do this).

TV manufacturers are still winning although some data points to a decline in sales figures and cable providers are starting to feel the pinch for declining viewership and subscriptions. It’s been reported that ESPN is losing 10,000 subscribers per day and are down 12,000,000 subs since their all-time high of 100,000,000 in 2011.

Let’s look at ESPN for a moment; I grew up loving everything about ESPN. I loved the on-air talent back when Stuart Scott first said “cooler than the other side of the pillow.” I’m not saying the talent now days is bad, I’m saying it’s not original, and it seems forced at times.

ESPN is like that YouTuber who started his channel making videos of him playing his favorite video game and commentating over the gameplay to tell you all about how they feel about certain topics. Most all of those channels had to reinvent themselves, or their channels slowly died off with hardly any views.

Am I saying that ESPN is dying? Not yet.. They are on a decline just like a lot of YouTubers, and they must reinvent themselves so they can keep delivering content that people WANT to consume. Creating content is fucking useless if nobody is consuming it.

Am I saying that ESPN has a content problem? Yes. One of the issues is people want to watch sporting events free of political bullshit. When I turn on SportsCenter, I want to get caught up on all things sports related. I don’t give a shit what a professional athlete has to say about Donald f’ing Trump.. Nor do I care to hear the political views of the hosts of the shows. If I care what an athlete has to say on world topics, I will follow them on Twitter.

Let’s talk about ads. I’m still amazed that when I watch TV, I see a ton of ads that have nothing to do with my current purchasing habits/wants/trends. When if ever will TV deliver me a relevant ad for a product or service? You know what I hate more than ads? Ads that are not related to the goods and services that I care about.

TV must create/use smart technology to deliver relevant ads to consumers. TV must keep political pandering away from traditional sports. TV must create content that people are consuming.. what is that content? Gaming and Esports.

If TV can’t take care of these three areas, they will be forced to break out certain channels and offer them to be streamed from smartphones, laptops, and computers for a small monthly fee. Yes, I’m going to be watching SportsCenter one day on my MacBook for $4.99 per month.