Cable Television is 2000-and-Late

When I was younger, I would watch cable television just about everyday.  I would flip from Nickelodeon to Comedy Central to Comcast Sports Net to Animal Planet.  Every now and then, I would use my cable provider's "On-Demand" option to choose certain shows to watch, but the selection to choose from was very limited.  Now, through media convergence, all media forms are available however we want and whenever we want.  A few taps on a smartphone screen can bring us to a news article, a video game, or a tv streaming service.  People no longer need to flip through channels and wait for their desired show to come on; they can find their favorite shows on various streaming services.

I have noticed lately that I don't use cable television unless it is for watching a sporting event (Marquee Network made it more difficult to watch Cubs games, but luckily they partnered with Xfinity last-minute).  Even then, North Central doesn't offer cable television anymore, so I have resorted to finding streams of the games on the internet.  The only people around me that really use cable anymore are my parents.  My middle brother doesn't pay for cable, and my oldest brother and his girlfriend pay for Hulu and such (I use their account).  The only time my girlfriend and I have used cable television is to watch Bachelorette in Paradise, but Monday Night Football caused us to have to stream it on Tuesday night.  This is also a trend among US households, where cable TV usage decreased by about 4 million households from 2018 to 2020.  Additionally, the amount of cable users is expected to drop even further from 2020 to now.  Concurrently, spending on streaming services rose by 40.6% from 2019 to 2020.

My mom enjoys watching her tv shows late at night before she goes to bed.  She watches Seinfeld or King of Queens.  However, Seinfeld has been picked up by Netflix, so every episode is now available to be streamed, making cable practically useless to her now.  My dad loves the DVR feature on our cable box and records his shows so he can watch them as he pleases.  So even though he watches cable television, he frequently watches them on his own accord rather than waiting for the show to come on.  But, he does enjoy mostly old black and white shows as well as news channels, so using a streaming service to watch his old shows is more difficult because the popularity of those shows are on a steep decline.  He can, however, watch the news on that station's app, which can be accessed on a tv or a phone.

Here, we can see that a direct effect of media convergence is the decaying of traditional media.  As tv shows and movies become available on streaming apps, cable becomes less useful.  Cable TV was a revelation of its time, but things come to an end as more modern technology arises.  There is a possibility that streaming services will become outdated as well.  I don't know how it could happen because this seems as efficient and useful as possible, but I'm sure that's exactly what people thought about cable TV in the past.

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