Cut the cord links include Sony's streaming deal, pay TV losing market share ... but, where's the news?

Here's some, uh ... stuff. I was interested, maybe you will be too.

Forbes has more to say in the aftermath of the news of Sony/Intel signing on Viacom cable channels for their new Internet streaming service, which will come with PlayStation4 and their branded TVs:

But for those hoping they’ll be able to pick and choose which channels, note that word “bundle.” There is no chance Sony will offer a la carte channel selection, at least not in any way that offers substantial discounting. In a future post, I’ll go through the ugly math of why you are unlikely to see this from anyone anytime soon, but right now Sony’s problem is that it simply can’t negotiate those kind of deals even if it wanted to. In fact, it will end up paying more for programming than a Comcast or DirecTV because it will not be able to promise the kind of volume those companies offer to programmers. The good news is that programming typically represents about 40% of your cable bill so even if Sony pays a bit more, it can charge less.

Well that sucks. I'm not really interested in a channel situation, though. I'd rather have a service that works like Hulu & Netflix where you punch up the show you want to see and have at it. That's too much like cable is currently. I'm still not gonna watch a Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta marathon capped off by a reunion show, it's just not my thing.

(You know what's great over the internet via my Roku box btw, speaking of Viacom? Music videos, a business Viacom used to be in. Vevo on Roku is excellent!)

Two stories at Quartz.com in two days on cutting the cord and the options to fill the void. They say Netflix and Amazon Prime are not enough to replace cable. I agree, for reasons that I think are responded to nicely by adding Hulu. They do make the case however for having news coverage at your fingertips:

Pay television providers are unchallenged by OTT TV in three live TV categories: news, sports, and reality TV. Very few households would choose to drop live TV. This explains why Nielsen’s ZeroTV households, or cord cutters that are not pay TV, subscribers amount to less than 5% of all households.

I can watch BBC News videos via an icon on my Samsung Smart Blu-Ray player but it's not live, one really needs live streaming news coverage for certain inevitabilities. Roku does have some live channels so it's possible, but I'm not paying for the news channel I want (I prefer BBC World) as part of a suite of news services that includes, for example less than credible news sources like the Juggalo Action Report or Fox News Channel or The Blaze. That's one of the reasons I'm leaving cable and satellite, I don't want to pay for what I don't want.

Finally, Digital Trends has a piece looking to the future of cord cutting given recent trends:

A closer look at the numbers show what’s really going on. Despite losing customers in Q2 last year, the top 13 cable providers (which represent 94% of the market) gained some in Q3 and Q4 to cushion the blow. But 2012 was big because it marked the first time the cable industry lost a net number of subscribers. All told, 80,000 were gone over the course of the year. Some of that was made up in Q1 2013 with 195,000 added, but as mentioned above, 320,000 left over the three months from April to June. Can such a topsy-turvy trend really indicate that cord-cutting is a serious threat?

Maybe not “serious” yet, but nonetheless potentially irreversible. Leichtmann Research Group found that the 195,000 number paled in comparison to the 445,000 who jumped on board with cable providers in the same time period in 2012.

I think we're picking up steam, we'll see real movement in 2014.

Cut The Cord: I am fully, completely entertained by Netflix & Hulu on Roku

I am. Absolutely, full, completely entertained by a combination of Netflix Instant and Hulu on my Roku 2 device. It's been a perfect viewing experience. I had only one issue with the actual streaming on only on one Hulu video (from the 2010 Just For Laughs festival). Otherwise the picture is pristine on my 40" LCD, the useability of the Roku device is solid, and with adding on over-the-air broadcast stations I'd be set. No cable TV necessary.

Last night I watched a couple episodes of The IT Crowd on Netflix, The Speech, which features my favorite thing in all sitcomdom, the Moss and Roy plot that I affectionately call "Jen, this is the Internet" and Friendface, the episode that ends with Moss and Roy fighting to be Jen's fake boyfriend in front of all her old college chums. EVERY episode of this international Emmy and BAFTA winning sitcom that manages to squeeze so much funny out of only four regular characters and does it better than almost any other sitcom in history.

After that the final two episodes of Moone Boy on Hulu (also Chris O'Dowd, who's in The IT Crowd and also the recent HBO series Family Tree). Moone Boy's a show he created about a young boy kinda like him growing up in Boyle in Ireland who happens to have an adult imaginary friend (played by him). Delightful! Wonderful! Very sweet, funny, tale of Liam Moone, a moon faced boy living in the 80s in an Irish town with all the usual hurdles and hardships of being a kid ... with an encouraging someone on his shoulder.

Lovely show.

And great for your not-too-young kids, too.

And Steve Coogan shows up in an incredible guest starring role in the second episode. Don't miss that. His scenes with Liam's mom, played by the beautiful Dierdre O'Kane are hilarious.

NOTE: There are commercials on Hulu. You can't skip them. However, they are short breaks (maybe 40 seconds, tops), not the overlong breaks that broadcast and cable TV needs to keep the lights on. It's doable. These are the first TV ads I've watched in a long time, because I record EVERYTHING, even if I watch the same day. Or in the cast of last night's Jeselnik Offensive on Comedy Central, I started watching 11 minutes after it started so I could FF through the commercials.

Time Warner Cable, don't screw with my TV. I WILL cut you.

Sometimes good things come of bad things.

It's day five of CBS Inc. vs. Time Warner Cable. Haven't had any of the gazillion Showtime channels, lost the Smithsonian Channel too, and I didn't even realize CBS served them up.

(Now I understand why Tom Cavanaugh did all that stuff for them, he's probably working off his Love Monkey contract. Yes, I know it doesn't work like that. Yes, I would have liked to see where that show went. No, I don't know what Tom is doing now.)

Missed Ray Donovan on Saturday. Not that I'm current, I have three episodes on the DVR yet to watch. The DVR's a bit of an issue right now, also, it seems to be stopping recording stuff after a time and you have to reboot the thing to fix it. Gotta watch those (and all of Downton Abbey series three) before I turn it in for new hardware, if I do at all, Time Warner Cable you bastards.

You see, the thing is ... CBS is more than happy to have Time Warner continue to feed the channels to their subscribers, but Time Warner has pulled them in an effort to affect negotiation. Apparently CBS Inc. loses $400,000 a day in fees from us because of this. Of course CBS lost probably 20 times that just airing a Rob Schneider sitcom a few times so I don't know how that's a punishment. $400K a day for a corporation the size of CBS is a dime clinking around your washing machine.

So yeah, I'm pissed at my cable company. And I'm doing something about it. And I'm activating this blog again.

I already have a Roku 2, but I also got a Google Chromecast this week. Roku didn't support YouTube and a guy's gotta see his very well shot amateur videos from the Comic-Con panels so that wasn't gonna do. Chromecast is fine, but for a guy like me who doesn't opt for a smartphone in his life (I'm a much better person for it, not judging you) it means operating the thing from my laptop, which means carrying that around the house.

The loser here is Samsung. I bought a Samsung Smart Blu-Ray player hoping it would handle all this but the YouTube interface fails constantly and they decided NOT to update the Smart Blu-Ray for HBOGo, just the higher priced TVs. Boooo!

I know ... White people problems.

So, for the next few weeks I'll be trying out this cord cutting thing without actually cutting yet. Trial run. Test. And if you want you can follow along. I'll update on Twitter too (@JoeWatchesTV) and of course I'll be complaining to every one of my Facebook friends along the way.

Don't screw with my TV. I will cut you.