In olden times - the early 1950's - Americans (including this writer's family) bought a TV with a VHF channel selection dial used to choose between channels 2 through 13. Towns were lucky to get three TV stations, typically ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates, each using one of the 12 numbers on the dial.
Later that decade came TV's with a UHF channel selection dial used to choose between channels 14 through 83. More TV stations each using one of those 82 channel numbers went into business. But they would come and go, if not completely at least in terms of ownership/affiliation.
The thing is, those channels numbered 2 to 83 theoretically represented a potential maximum of 83 programs we could select from at a given time. but only if a channel was active, which most weren't.
Of course, you had to start watching when the show began, generally on the hour or half hour. Eventually we did get various recorders and tape or disc players which allowed us to access more programming.
Without elaborating on a complex subject, at the beginning of the 21st Century conversion of analogue broadcast TV to digital broadcast TV began as the FCC recovered radio bandwidth for other uses. However the introduction of digital to broadcast TV increased the number of potential channels which in the San Francisco Bay Area has led to the single channel 36 now channels 36.1, 36.2, 36.3, and 36.5. But digital falls well short of the reception distance range of the old VHF.
Netflix triggered a revolution
In February 2007 Netflix became the first financially strong streaming service offering professionally produced entertainment. On November 12, 2007, a six part post The Screen Writers Guild strike, technology, and the future of scripted television introduced this blog noting:
The Television Writers Guild strike is viewed by many as just another labor dispute. It’s not. It is the first nationally significant economic acknowledgment of the transition in home entertainment that has been under way for a decade. For this industry, 2008 is 1948 all over again.
Neither television industry executives, nor the writers, nor any of us viewers know where scripted episodic drama and comedy programming will end up within five years. We need to think in terms of media, source of funding, format or survival.
While the home entertainment industry struggles to cope with changes over he next 5-to-10 years, viewers who want to watch scripted tv will need to adapt. That’s us, folks.
Neither television industry executives, nor the writers, nor any of us viewers know where scripted episodic drama and comedy programming will end up within five years. We need to think in terms of media, source of funding, format or survival.
While the home entertainment industry struggles to cope with changes over he next 5-to-10 years, viewers who want to watch scripted tv will need to adapt. That’s us, folks.
Fast forward to 2020. The 15 "channels" shown on the dial above are actually the streaming services we use. All but one are really Subscription Video-on-Demand (SVoD), an entertainment programming model where users pay a monthly fee in exchange for instant access to a streaming library consisting of movies, TV shows, and other media content, plus live content.
One, Locast, is a non-profit streaming substitute for an antenna to receive local broadcast TV channels live. It depends on donors for support. In the San Francisco Bay Area designated market area (DMA) today there are still only 46 such channels offered in different languages and/or different interest focuses.
Ignoring live content, the 14 SVoD "channels" offer 385,000± hours of on-demand viewing content options in the form of movies and TV episodic shows. That "availability" is radically different from 20th Century TV. It represents about 130 years of 8-hours-a-day TV watching and if we decide to watch a show at 8:08 pm we can start streaming the show from the beginning at that point in time.
It's cheaper than cable????
When it began streaming in 2007 Netflix on its own it did not represent a replacement for cable TV. At that time cable TV was not cheap. As reported in The New York Times, in 2007 Cablevision received from each subscriber an average monthly revenue of $75 which is $93.25 in 2020 dollars.
But today, streaming with all its content must really be expensive...except it isn't.
Comparing the cost today for streaming to to the cost for cable in 2007 is complicated. The initial question is do you count the cost of internet service?
We've had internet service since the 1980's for reasons that have nothing to do with TV. So for us internet service is not a cost of streaming TV.
If you are currently working from home using Zoom or some other similar online meeting software, the cost of internet for you is also not a TV cost. If you are a Millennial (or from any other generation) who carries around a cell phone with internet service built in, the reality for you is also "no."
The fact is for the majority of Americans access to the internet is the norm not for streaming TV but as a result of having basic communications with others.
Nonetheless, let's assign $10 a month of the costs for internet service to the cost of streaming since many providers limit data in basic subscriptions, limits which not infrequently constrain streaming data volumes.
To that $10, one must add the costs of the SVoD "channels" on that dial above. Begin by recognizing that CBS All Access (CBS), Hulu (ABC and Fox), and Peacock (NBC) have a price for content with advertising which is a constant on cable TV. Then recognize that the dial includes what are "premium add-on" channels in cable packages (Starz, Showtime, HBO). Finally recognize that the "channels" are available at a monthly cost which can be "turned on and off" monthly - you don't need to have all the channels all the time. Oh, and there are others you may want to add at times.
Comparing the cost of SVoD to that 2007 cable TV average isn't straightforward. It seems fair to use the ad-supported price for the three services that have that option. And since we're comparing average subscribers, it seems fair to assume that half of those 2007 subscribers subscribed to a premium add-on. And probably half had a package that included a channel with British TV content.
With those assumptions for the comparison, we're looking at a 2020 cost of $68 for streaming services plus that assigned $10 for internet. So today you can have on-demand television from the dial above for $78. Or less. Or more.
Some might want to argue that the dial above does not include much in the way of sports. True. So don't subscribe to MHz Choice (which is all subtitled foreign language content) and instead bundle ESPN+ to your Hulu and Disney+ subscription.
Add a preferred other sports provider.
I only explain this to provide a beginning point for thinking about the fact that you could at any one time subscribe to fewer channels, swapping in and out to give you access to scripted content not immediately when it is released but within a few months.
Keep in mind that cable service in 2007 offered a fraction of the content - mostly on a rigid schedule - at a cost of $93.25 in 2020 dollars.
We want our TV content without commercials from CBS All Access, Hulu, and Peacock.Those three channels without commercials do cost us $15 a month more. But in 2007 we were paying for Dish Network $87.91 a month which is $109.30 in 2020 dollars. And we were paying for high speed internet back then. Streaming in 2020 is cheaper than cable TV was in 2007.
About those "devices."
The real indicator that SVoD is not 20th Century television is that there is no dial anything like the representation above. Instead viewers buy a device known as a digital media player, connect it to their TV, then select and watch content through "apps" providing access to SVoD services such as those shown on the dial representation above.
In our household we have an Amazon Fire TV Cube (we paid $90, but it is also an Echo performing other duties), an Apple TV (we paid $89), and a Roku (we paid $79)...yep, one each from the Big 3. Nobody needs all three. Some TV's today have a digital media player built in, but you do need something for each TV. (To be fair, one probably should assign an amortized cost of $3 a month for the device you need because cable systems charge for their devices.)
Of course, today you can use most cell phones and tablets to watch content when away from a TV. Many do that on a regular basis if they travel for business, or if they are kids.
Revolutionary SVoD mileau changes in the time of Covid-19.
On March 12, 2008, NBC lauched Hulu. It's content expanded to include partners ABC and Fox. On October 28, 2014, CBS launched CBS All Access. At that point, the four major networks were offering their content, aired the day after an episode aired on local channels. The advantage, of course, is that you could watch shows four months later on demand.
This year NBC launched Peacock. Disney gained ownership of Hulu while introducing Disney+.on November 12, 2019. The scene keeps changing. But the one thing Covid-19 has done has rapidly increased subscriptions for all these services because viewers can't go to work or school.
As quoted above, in November 2007 it was clear that the TV industry and viewers would be forced "to cope with changes over he next 5-to-10 years." In 2020 for as little $20 a month anyone with high speed internet can have on-demand access to a substantial trove of movies and TV shows. Subscribers can change SVoD services monthly as desired.
Nothing in the 20th Century really prepared us for what the illustrative dial above represents.
