PUT is Down - America's changing relationship with Television

So in America more and more homes only have high speed internet -- that means no cable TV subscription. This was written about in MediaPost.com by Wayne Friedman in an article called Broadband-Only Home Accellerate Cable TV declines.

PUT???

PUT is the acronym for People Using Television. Since Nielsen started counting broadband only homes in 2013, the broadband only category has grown to be "2.7% of the sample size."That's not a huge number but it is growing and it's bigger when they look at younger viewers where it's down about 7%.

Local TV Should Be Free!!

Let's face it, the old ad driven model of TV was fairly reasonable. You watched TV and you watched Ads; now you pay to get cable and you STILL have to watch Ads. That the FCC allows TV stations to charge cable companies for local TV doesn't harm their ad revenue -- since it keeps people watching their shows, stations are paid by their advertisers and they get to do FCC Approved Double-Dip.

Stop: FCC Approved Double-Dib

The good news is that you don't need an act of Congress to stop this double-dip. Just get a $50 or less digital antenna; it is a one time cost and once again your local TV will be free. Then use Hulu, Netflix or Amazon Prime, Apple iTunes or Google Play to get all the other shows you want; or watch them on YouTube, or the networks web sites.

Back to the Fireplace

Of course if you don't want to spend any money you can go back to the good old days and start watching your food cook by the fireside.