Is the end of subscription television nearing?

Television is an entertainment service that was invented in the 1920s and has been with humanity ever since. However, conventional television is being used less and less. Is it about to come to an end?

Until a few years ago, subscription television was the king of entertainment. Whether it came by air, satellite, or cable, everyone had a television at home.

Traditional television has many channels, some are free, while for others you need to pay. This generally means that you must purchase a cable box from a television company in order to view the channels.

However, with the advent of the internet and streaming services, the landscape has changed. Television channels have been losing their ratings little by little. Many people have even ended up unsubscribing.

How does traditional television work?

The operation of television is quite simple, it consists of transmitting images by wave s, cable or satellite to a television. These signals are transmitted from the source, generally antennas located in strategic parts of a country.

Televisions are responsible for receiving these signals and displaying them on the screen. In the case of satellite television, it travels to space and then back. It is captured by an antenna and decoded by a decoder and then passed to the television.

Why is television on the decline?

For some years now, we have seen how the internet has been gaining more and more importance in the entertainment sector. We have also seen the birth of streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney + and many others.

These services offer series, films and documentaries that people can watch both on their smart TV or on their mobile device. We have even seen television services over the internet (IPTV) with which cable companies are left behind. This type of service is cheaper and contains many more channels.

According to statistics, the youngest people (under 40 years old) have a very low consumption of conventional television. While the older audience still remains and has even seen an increase. This is summarized is that the new generations consume less and less television.

Let's take a simple example, in the United States (the largest television consumer in the world) by 2010, about 89% of households had subscription television.

By 2020, this number dropped to 67%. This has been a loss of 22% of subscribers in just 10 years.

Is television going to disappear?

It is a bit difficult to determine, however, the numbers are not wrong, so if we follow the trend, perhaps in a few decades, conventional television will disappear.

But this does not mean that television channels will disappear, on the contrary, they will have to adapt to the new market. And this new market is obviously the internet.

We have already seen progress in this, for example Movistar or DirecTV, which are one of the most important cable companies in Latin America. These currently offer services through which you can watch live channels over the internet.

Why are streaming services gaining ground on TV?

This is a question that many people ask themselves, fortunately, it is very simple to answer.

First, our days are getting busier and busier, so many people do not have enough time to watch television.

But this is not the biggest problem, but the television channels have a schedule. If you want to see your favorite series in which they broadcast one chapter a day, you will need to be available every day at the same time.

Instead, streaming services offer you entertainment that you can watch when you want and when you want. So you will not miss a chapter of your favorite series again.

When you go on a trip, you will not be able to take your television with you and even if you could, it is impractical.

On the other hand, with streaming services, you can watch your programs from your mobile anywhere you have an internet connection.

Finally, we have the price, while a satellite or cable TV service with a few channels can cost about 15 dollars, you can buy an IPTV with many channels for 10 dollars. But also, you can hire a service like Netflix from about $8 a month depending on the country.

As you can see, subscription television is quite a complex situation. Therefore, we see that it is difficult for him to recover his users.