15% Of U.S. Broadband Households Have Antenna-Only TV Service

Megalith

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Are some people actually going back to over-the-air TV? That is what this study could imply. Broadband-only households with antenna-only TV service have risen from around 8% in 2013 to 15%. Pay-TV subscriptions, on the other hand, continue to decline, which, aside from basic lack of interest, can obviously be attributed to over-the-top services such as Netflix and Amazon Video.

Parks Associates notes declining pay-TV satisfaction in each of the last three years. Only one-third of pay-TV subscribers are very satisfied with their pay-TV service. According to Parks Associates' OTT Video Market Tracker, 63% of U.S. broadband households subscribe to at least one OTT service and 31% of U.S. broadband households have multiple OTT service subscriptions. “Pay-TV providers are adapting to address a fundamentally different video services market than existed three years ago. Challenges still remain for consumers in aggregating and discovering their favorite content and being able to watch on their preferred screen. Live broadcasts of high-profile events remain a challenge for online delivery, though pay TV and broadcast TV conquered live distribution long ago,” Sappington said. “These challenges represent areas in which pay-TV providers, or new entrants, can still win consumer attention, viewership, and revenue.”
 
I just went back to OTA myself a few months ago. It was a bit tricky to get a strong signal for all channels with a indoor antenna, but I ultimately managed by abusing signal reflections. Much to my surprise I actually got the best signal with the Mohu Leaf laying flat, hanging off the top edge a tower speaker near the window, with minor adjustments to the surrounding furniture, rather than the mounted on the window itself.

Cable TV subscription rates for the past few years in my area have continued to go up and up. No longer economical, considering I almost never watch TV, while I'm on the Internet almost all the time. Family member still wanted to watch live news, so we just subbed to Playstation Vue for $30. If it was just myself, I could easily live with broadband and OTA only.
 
Why is this news? In many places broadband doesn't manage a data rate sufficient for digital streaming. Broadband could be only 512kb/s.
 
I have an OTA antenna. Well worth it. Why pay for service I don't want? Plus, the local cable co has gotten rid of their local-only channel package. Seems that they have it in their mind that getting rid of that cheap solution to OTA channels would drive consumers to buy in to the higher-end full-of-fluff packages. They continue to misjudge their consumer and I assume will find ways to extract money from them by other means as soon as Net Neutrality is [unfortunately] repealed. I'd fully expect our internet packages to be full of toll roads in due time.

My cable co's (Cox) only competitor - CenturyLink - recently stopped by to offer me their service. 1/3rd the speed of my current package for the same price, plus I have to pay $99 to install it. Riiiiiight.

Eventually, I'd hope that OTA channels turn to providing an IP based viewing solution. They can lock it to the region using the IP# of the viewer to satisfy their affiliate contracts.
 
Cable sucks, but for most, it's the only option unless you can get by with only a couple of channels. I'm only about 10 miles from NYC but live in a valley behind a hill, so reception here sucks. Friend lives about 20 miles south and gets great reception because his roof is unblocked signal from the empire state building. He gets all the NYC channels, long island, and some Connecticut, as well as some Philadelphia. If I were living where he does? I'd cancel cable too.
 
I am paying only about $10 a month more for a cable box with a DVR (and a better picture) then to go streaming only. That is the only reason I am still on Cable TV.
 
I've always had OTA, in addition to DirecTV though. I enjoy the sub-channels on a lot of the stations. I like watching a lot of the old shows I used to watch. It feels a lot like when I discovered UHF channels when I was a kid. I always felt like I was watching channels no one else knew about.
 
I went with OTA a few years ago. I installed two antennas (antennae?) in my attic - one for UHF, the other for VHF. I spent some time adjusting to get max signal strength - it's still not perfect reception but works pretty well. I get a better picture (1080i - which i think is close to 720p) than my cable company provides. Oh yeah - it's free! I use hardware called HD HomeRun that lets me stream this to other media devices. I could set up a DVR (MythTV or similar), but don't really watch enough tv to care. Hard to calculate savings entirely - I shelled out about $200 for the antennas and another $100ish for the HD HomeRun. My cable bill could be anywhere from $20-$40 depending on promotions and the like. I have been using this setup for about 5 years - so the hardware is paid off.
 
I've been using OTA with a lifetime contract TiVo since HD became a thing. I recently replaced the Series 3 TiVo with a bargain basement priced Roamio and it's fantastic. With the OTA+streaming, we can get everything we need.
 
OTA and cable/ sat is still the best for live sports.

Unfortunately that pretty much the only thing I watch on those distributions.
 
This is a growing trend due to the cost of cable/satellite and the absolute GARBAGE they call programming.
But consider the reason Cable TV thrived in the 80 and 90; those reasons are fast disappearing.
OTA TV had very little to offer in the past. 3 or 4 channels in the old days. My last count was 30 off the air channels I could pick up.
There is a lot of nostalgia programming on OTA TV now. Classic TV shows on several channels.
And the biggest winner; it is FREE.
Mind you that you PAY for Cable and Satellite, and it is still full of advertising you have to watch.
 
I don't even do OTA. Everything the gf and I watch is on premium channels that aren't worth paying for, so we do a combo of Amazon Video and waiting for it on Netflix.
 
This is a growing trend due to the cost of cable/satellite and the absolute GARBAGE they call programming.
But consider the reason Cable TV thrived in the 80 and 90; those reasons are fast disappearing.
OTA TV had very little to offer in the past. 3 or 4 channels in the old days. My last count was 30 off the air channels I could pick up.
There is a lot of nostalgia programming on OTA TV now. Classic TV shows on several channels.
And the biggest winner; it is FREE.
Mind you that you PAY for Cable and Satellite, and it is still full of advertising you have to watch.

I don't know how many people have realized it yet, but services like Playstation Vue and SlingTV are also probably taking away a lot of cable subscribers. Why would you spend $100 a month on cable when you can get most of the channels you actually care about for $20-30?
 
count me in -- I have one of those cheap $9 flat HD antennas on the back of my TV (wall mounted) and thats more than enough for me. I never watch TV unless I have a guest over... if I really want to watch something, I find something way better than "TV" on my 30TB array :)

Plus, why would I pay $30-50 bucks a month for something I never use? Package choice when it comes to TV is crap. I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks for a few channels I want, but bundle them with 300 shit channels I don't want? I'll just download my TV then :)
 
I've had OTA for 6+ years. Silicon Dust hardware, true HD over my network! Windows 7 Media Center! with Netflix and Amazon Prime, + YouTube, I can't keep up with what I have to watch already. In Phoenix, AZ I get over 80 channels, not all useful, but my media PC is an i5, GTX 1070, Vive, etc. all free, since I have saved over $100 a month for that entire time!
 
I've never had cable because I never saw a point of it. Installed a OTA on my house a year after I bought it for sports.
 
Been using OTA since 2005 or 2006. About 39 channels with 5 tuners & Windows Media Center. More than enough.
 
I would consider going OTA only if the Internet and TV portions of the bill werent bundled together such that I save almost nothing by dropping TV :(
 
I hooked up my neighbors air TV antenna for him and set up the TV to antenna. He gets three channels, ABC, comet and grit.

Here in Lafayette, the channel list is suppose to be 13 channels. I think it his HDTV that won't pick up the rest of the .digit channels.

I think he needs a digital converter box to get the remaining channels.

See?

https://nocable.org/availability-report/zip/47906-west-lafayette-in

What do u guys think? He needs a digital converter box?
 
I hooked up my neighbors air TV antenna for him and set up the TV to antenna. He gets three channels, ABC, comet and grit.

Here in Lafayette, the channel list is suppose to be 13 channels. I think it his HDTV that won't pick up the rest of the .digit channels.

I think he needs a digital converter box to get the remaining channels.

See?

https://nocable.org/availability-report/zip/47906-west-lafayette-in

What do u guys think? He needs a digital converter box?

If he gets those 3 then he shouldn't need a box. Are you saying you think his tuner in the TV is weak? I would suggest a rotor so that he can turn the antenna towards the signal and maybe a preamp and amp. I can't pick up anything without my amp, but with it I get about 24 or 25 channels.
 
If he gets those 3 then he shouldn't need a box. Are you saying you think his tuner in the TV is weak? I would suggest a rotor so that he can turn the antenna towards the signal and maybe a preamp and amp. I can't pick up anything without my amp, but with it I get about 24 or 25 channels.

It's an apt. and the antenna is a flat HDTV air antenna that mounts to the inside wall/or how I have it is, connected to suction cups with it sucked to the window as high as possible.

What is odd is that the antenna and tv picks up champagne Illinois "ABC" far from Lafayette, but the darn thing wont pick up local channels. WNDY, WLFI and others.
 
It depends on where you live. In cities where there's some decent content, that switch to digital tv has given people about 20-30 extra channels.
A lot of people have decided that 100-200$ a month for cable just isn't worth it.
 
It's an apt. and the antenna is a flat HDTV air antenna that mounts to the inside wall/or how I have it is, connected to suction cups with it sucked to the window as high as possible.

What is odd is that the antenna and tv picks up champagne Illinois "ABC" far from Lafayette, but the darn thing wont pick up local channels. WNDY, WLFI and others.

I'm not sure. I've never had any luck at all with an indoor antenna. But I live in a rural area. I'm probably 40 to 60 miles away from most stations that I pick up.

Strangely enough, I have had success with making an antenna using a 2 x 4, metal coat racks bent into a "V", washer & screws, and copper wire. I built one for my father-in-law, and he gave up his DirecTV afterwards. And I built one for my dad's workshop. Both work great, just ugly as hell.
 
It's an apt. and the antenna is a flat HDTV air antenna that mounts to the inside wall/or how I have it is, connected to suction cups with it sucked to the window as high as possible.

What is odd is that the antenna and tv picks up champagne Illinois "ABC" far from Lafayette, but the darn thing wont pick up local channels. WNDY, WLFI and others.
https://www.antennaweb.org/
 
I'm not sure. I've never had any luck at all with an indoor antenna. But I live in a rural area. I'm probably 40 to 60 miles away from most stations that I pick up.

Strangely enough, I have had success with making an antenna using a 2 x 4, metal coat racks bent into a "V", washer & screws, and copper wire. I built one for my father-in-law, and he gave up his DirecTV afterwards. And I built one for my dad's workshop. Both work great, just ugly as hell.
like this
http://makezine.com/projects/digital-tv-coat-hanger-antenna/
 
I'm on OTA as well.. Not enough on to make switching to Cable/SAT worth it. When it was analog in this area, there were 4 channels. With digital, each channel has 2-4 seperate channels, so it's not bad actually. Normally watch PBS or one of the classic TV channels. MASH, Macgyver and The Star Treks. Then CBS has the newer shows that I like.

I have hughsnet, with the 5/50 package so no streaming for me, or very little and I use the Roku
 
I've been OTA for local stations for about 4 years now. I wouldn't go back for anything! I also cut the remaining cable last year when gigabit u-verse became available in my area. BYE-BYE Craptastic!

For other than local, I have Netflix and Sling (for NCAA football primarily). Works like a champ!
 
I've been OTA for almost 4 years as well. Don't miss cable TV...do miss sports, but can usually find ways of watching. It got to the point where I had a +$150.00 cable bill and only watched one channel, at that channel was turning to shit with reality shows.

May try Sling as Spleen mentioned above for NCAA.
 
My family is one of them. I'm not paying $60+ for cable TV when most of it is commercials and stuff I don't watch. We're already paying $75/month for 150mbps down.
 
OTA with Tablo, Sling and Netflix. Only issue I have been having lately is up and down signal reception. I may need to replace the antenna its 15-20 years old.and some of the plastic parts have broken.
 
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