# What Is The Future Of Satellite Broadcasters?



## Jim148 (Jun 22, 2004)

As posted above, for those that follow the satellite television broadcasting industry, what does the future look like? Are they taking notice of the "cord cutters" or are they such a small segment that they don't matter? 

Granted, they were two very different services, but I still remember when we still had two competing satellite radio services, before XM and Sirius became a single service. Could that be the future of direct broadcast satellite television? Could there be an eventual DISH-Direct merger? Or, could they morph into over the top services, like Sling TV and PS Vue? 

They other thing that I am well aware of is that not everybody that subscribes to Direct TV or DISH necessarily has high speed internet in their home. In fact, although I don't have any numbers, I suspect that some subscribers might not have any internet in their home.


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## RBA (Apr 14, 2013)

Sorry crystal ball is cloudy.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Satellite subscription has plateaued and both providers are expanding into non-satellite delivery.

Satellite remains an efficient system to transmit one signal to many people at the same time. Cable can also do this through traditional linear channels. Other services are turning toward streaming where each customer is getting one or more direct streams from the provider of the content they are watching at the moment.

With streaming it is less important what is being watched (live vs on demand) but how many streams are active becomes more important. With satellite 30 million subscribers could be watching the same content with no degradation. One does not suffer because they chose to watch a more popular program or are watching at a peak time. With streaming additional active streams can cause problems ... at the source (can the servers handle the number of active streams?) and at any choke point between the source and the viewer (how large is your bandwidth?).

As long as there are linear channels there will be a place for one to many broadcast systems such as satellite distribution.


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## camo (Apr 15, 2010)

Here is a story on it. Basically saying the 1.4 million who left in 2014 may be the calm before the storm. I was a little shocked before I retired, we had a show of hands at a group safety meeting (42 people) asking who subscribed to cable or satellite and only 1/3 did, and of that 1/3 most were 40+.

http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/cord-cutting-picks-up-1-4-million-u-s-households-tuned-out-pay-tv-last-year-1201441530/


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

That article is over a year old. Nevertheless - it highlights some of the issues on DBS /cable - you are going to start seeing more and more subs looking for these cheaper alternatives. Cable will fight back by imposing datacaps - but how long is THAT sustainable ? I'm currently thinking about it myself - Playstation Vue looks like a real possiblity if you can get your locals OTA or possibly lifeline cable (maybe even Dish's Welcome pack ?)


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

Sat. radio and sat. TV are not apples to oranges, they are apples to industrial fasteners. Sat. radio.is a niche luxury product, and one that for most people supplements an easy to receive free alternative. Markets is mostly long commuters, displaced sports fans, and truckers/traveling salesmen. 

Some form of provider TV is, for most people, if not truly a "utility" like electric or water, something close. Yes, if a person lives in or near a city (depending on topography and odd allocations of TV stations based on the demographics and politics of 70 years ago) he can get OTA TV and live with that. And a person can PAY for internet and then watch SOME TV. Either just youtubes and other such free material, which is not really entertainment; or PAY for the same stuff as traditional cable/sat provides. But in a less stable and more random format.

Yes, there are some people who just watch TV as background noise. These people have mostly already fallen away. The rest remind me of two groups. People say the same things they say about eating at Golden Coral. "Its OK", "I get by", "I don't miss it that much". OK. But life is worth living. The other half say things that remind me of the early free days of BUD. "YOU are paying for this and that, but I get it free." or "I can just pay this small amount for just what I want." Yep. Until the number of people that do this reaches the critical point, and the internet providers start charging for being on-line with a high grade video all day. And the content providers lock down all the "use my neighbor's account number" crap.

In 20 years, both cable and sat will exist (and both DirecTV and DISH will exist) and will look a lot like what they do right now.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

The thing is... it would be one thing if people were cutting the cord because they don't like the content. Evidence suggests that is not the case. Actually total viewership is up across the board I suspect IF you counted all possible viewing methods for a particular program... now, an individual show might have lower ratings now because of increased choices... but total viewership of all media is undoubtedly up.

IF people are leaving for streaming because it is cheaper... be careful, because the reason streaming is cheaper (where it is, some places it actually is not) is because streaming is the 2nd or more option for revenue source after a TV show is aired originally on traditional channels OR a movie is shown in theaters. Once the tipping point is reached, where the revenue is not being met at the box office OR through the linear providers... streaming will need to become the primary source of revenue, and the pricing will shift. Suddenly streaming will have to increase, and satellite/cable might actually go down as it will become a secondary source of revenue. That will either save it OR be the last gasp.

Ultimately, the cheapness factor is not going to remain status quo for streaming... so be careful what you wish for.


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## southsider (Mar 16, 2013)

camo said:


> Here is a story on it. Basically saying the 1.4 million who left in 2014 may be the calm before the storm. I was a little shocked before I retired, we had a show of hands at a group safety meeting (42 people) asking who subscribed to cable or satellite and only 1/3 did, and of that 1/3 most were 40+.
> 
> http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/cord-cutting-picks-up-1-4-million-u-s-households-tuned-out-pay-tv-last-year-1201441530/


I am a high school teacher who also works with college students, and I've taught for 26 years. From various class discussions over the years, I'd say the percentage of students whose families have cable or satellite (for TV) has gone down to about 20% or so. Maybe even less than that. All of them use a streaming service such as Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu, and when you differentiate between students and the rest of the older members of their families, almost none of them watch content on a television. I've seen this trend for quite some time now. The college students I work with obtain their entertainment content through the internet. It's almost never regular television programming, but when it is, they seem to watch it in smaller YouTube-style clips.


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