Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Now or Later?

 

My friend, The Prospector on Rock 107, posed an interesting question yesterday.  He noted how people now spend more time streaming TV than they do watching traditional live and linear TV.  The question was, is there anything you must watch live?

Well, the easy answer there is news and sports, especially sports.  It's why networks pay handsomely for the NFL, with the other leagues following.  Of course, you do want your news in a timely fashion.  While I do watch individual news stories on-line, I really don't spend time streaming entire newscasts.  I will add that WNEP's Fire TV and Roku channels are doing extremely well.

I haven't cut the cord, yet, but I do occasionally watch something through my cable company's "On Demand" service.  It's rare.  Maybe once every couple of weeks, and not usually for more than an hour.

I don't subscribe to any streaming services and my television is not "smart."  The appliance where I do the vast majority of my viewing is of the tube variety.  It works great and I won't part with it until absolutely necessary.

Amazon has a number of offerings, including every season of my beloved "Barney Miller."  A half hour with Barney and the gang is infinitely better than anything on TV now.

It looks like TV is going in the same direction as radio.  It's turning in to a podcast world.  TV will become what you want, when you want it.  While it's a drastic change from what most of us grew up with, it's not necessarily a bad thing.