Cutting The Cord

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5604
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Yesterday I got home early and flipped on the news for some reason. The only time I bother with TV news is when something big happens and they have pictures or video. Otherwise watching some dunces read from the teleprompter is of no interest to me. The shout-shows are even less interesting as they never have anyone on representing my ideological perspective. for whatever reason, I had the urge, so I put on Fox News.

They have a show called The Five starring Greg Gutfeld and some other people who are unknown to me. I saw a middle-aged guy who reminded me of every marketing VP I’ve ever met. There was a little blonde scold that I think worked for Bush. Being Fox, they had two bimbos with big hooters to fill out the set. Presumably, the gag here is they have five people on the set, hence the name.

I only watched for a few minutes as they were taking turns showing their outrage and dismay over something Trump said about a reporter. It was like an AA meeting where instead of taking turns confessing their sins, they took turns confessing Trump’s sins. “Hi my name is Greg and Donald Trump is a big meanie.” The way they were carrying on I thought maybe Trump dropped the F-bomb on some nuns, but it turns out he just said something mean to a reporter.

As I turned it off, I was thinking about why Fox would be anti-Trump. It seems to me that their target audience overlaps quite a bit with the sort of people who like Trump’s bluntness and candor. From what I gather, they have a parade of chattering skulls day after day saying bad things about Trump and his supporters. That strikes me as foolish, but maybe I’m misjudging the Fox New audience.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the cable news rackets. I’m about to cut the cord and go Kodi/Sling for my video entertainments and the one thing I will not have is a cable news channel. I’m not really sure I care, but I suspect the reason none of them offer a cable-free service is they know there’s not that much interest. I’d watch free, but I would not pay and I doubt many people would pay to see Fox or CNN.

The thing is, American news operations are pretty much the opposite of what they claim. They always talk about speaking truth to power, but that’s nonsense. They are not reporting on the doings of the powerful for the benefit of the people. They are lecturing the people on behalf of the powerful, operating as a propaganda organ for the managerial state.

Conservative media like Fox was supposed to be what the Progressive media claims to be, but it really has not worked out that way. Instead, they function as the media arm of the Republican Party. One of the reasons I no longer watch Fox News other than when there is a disaster is that I know what they plan to say before they say it. It’s the same old cheers I’ve been hearing since the Bush years.

One of my themes here is that the two parties are really just two sides of the dominant culture of America. You see this with the cable news operations. In the 90’s, CNN was the dominant operation and reflected the ruling consensus. It was called the Clinton News Network for a reason. Fox came along simply because CNN was so flagrantly biased in favor of one side.

In the 2000’s, MSNBC became the super Progressive challenge to CNN. This reflected the Progressive takeover of the Democratic Party and ruling elite. Fox boomed as the other side of the coalition needed a media outlet of its own. Poor CNN, which represented the old Clinton-Bush consensus, fell to third place. There were times when CNN had no ratings, suggesting no one was actually watching on purpose.

Fast forward to now and CNN has absorbed the MSNBC crowd to become the left hand side’s media outlet. They are now #2 in the ratings behind Fox News, which is the right hand side’s propaganda outlet. Whether or not the viewership numbers reported are accurate, I don’t know, but hardly anyone watches any of these channels. They exist as entertainment for the political class.

That’s why they are fighting the cord cutting and unbundling. Make CNN optional and they lose 99.99% of their “subscribers.” Fox would probably lose 95% of their subscribers. Fox could probably live off ad dollars, but as a much smaller operation. MSNBC would go bust in a week and the extra channels like CNBC would be gone in an hour.

Like so much of modern life, normalville is farmed for taxes and fees to keep the managerial elite in the lifestyle they expect. Working men are paying $100 a month for TV service so Bill O’Reilly can peddle his crappy books. If you want to be an optimist, the coming implosion of the cable model is one place to look. This rentier system that is the modern American economy is slowly unraveling, one cord cutter at a time.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

13 Comments

model-1066 #7469 December 2, 2015 9:43 pm 0
I gave up tv entirely over 7 years ago, and have zero regrets. There just ain’t much worth watching. I’ll go to a bar to watch the occasional hockey or football game, but that’s about it. Best decision I ever made.
Mme Scherzo #7465 December 2, 2015 5:27 pm 0
We cut the imbecilical cord two years ago. Stopped watching local television. Ditched Facebook but kept Twitter. Roku, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and more often than not, YouTube. No regrets!
ganderson9754 #7464 December 2, 2015 5:14 pm 0
How do these things work, exactly? Do these devices deliver the content in HD? And can you record shows with them? I am a big college hockey fan and one of the things about my current cable that I like is I get a bunch of out of market games- particularly U of Minn. games. any thoughts?
thezman #7466 December 2, 2015 5:32 pm 0
I’m a college hockey fan as well and I get nothing from DTV. I end up watching games on-line. But, I’m strictly a Hockey East guy.
Nedd Ludd #7462 December 2, 2015 3:55 pm 0
I may have found sports solution for you Z, using Roku and a $20/mo subscription to Sling, without the problems of using Sling.Here’s what a commenter wrote about using Roku:Disqus User Jim C • 9 months agoNo you don’t. I’ve been watching ESPN3 on WatchESPN through my Roku for a year-and-a-half, and I don’t have a cable or satellite subscription. Plus, now you can subscribe to Sling TV for just $20/month (and you can cancel at anytime) and use that subscription to authenticate WatchESPN. I did that a couple of weeks ago. Authenticating WatchESPN through Sling TV gives you a lot more viewing options than just ESPN and ESPN2. And if you add the optional $5 Sling TV Sports package and authenticate your WatchESPN Roku channel, you can use it to watch even more.https://blog.roku.com/blog/2015/02/24/watchespn-debuts-on-roku-tv-watch-disney-channel-and-other-networks-coming-soon/
thezman #7463 December 2, 2015 4:20 pm 0
I have an Amazon Fire and it has the same apps. Someone else said that Sling was buggy, but I’ll give a shot on the free trial. Kodi is another way to get free sports feeds. I have it loaded on an old laptop and it is rather amazing. It takes some fiddling, but I can, if I so choose, watch Croatian soccer if I want.I did MLB on-line this year as a test. They ran a 50% off deal so I tried it out and it was great. Better than regular TV by a long shot. It’s one of those things you see and realize you are seeing the future. In ten years, all sports will be subscription.
Nedd Ludd #7461 December 2, 2015 2:49 pm 0
I cut the cord back in 2013, when the Trayvon case was coming to a boil.Even Fox refused to tell anything close to the truth about St Skittles.O’Reilly kept running that photo of Trayvon from Jr High School, giving viewersthe impression that TM was a harmless little boy who dindu nuffin’.I couldn’t stand giving these crap-weasels anymore of my money.Check out the Roku box or Roku HDMI stick, (though this won’t do much for your college sports jones).http://www.amazon.com/Roku-3500R-Streaming-Stick-HDMI/dp/B00INNP5VU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1449085865&sr=8-2&keywords=rokuI bought a Roku stick for $49.00. I also bought a $5.00/mo subscription to Acorn TV.Acorn has most of the British mystery & drama series. (Fortunately, many of the older BBC series, like Midsomer Murders, & Poirot make no attempt at political correctness.) I have no interest in team sports, so I’m not missing much there.Roku has a PBS channel so I can still watch NOVA.Roku also has YouTube which has thousands of good history documentariesfor free. (The stuff that used to be on The History Channel before Ice Road Truckers and Swamp People took the channel over.)Because I’m also an Amazon Prime, I also get their mostly abysmal selection of programming. Roku has many other available channels besides these.I would love to short the cable stocks, with their ever declining subscriber baseand forced bundling of channels that no one watches, but it’s still too soon.As long as cable still has a virtual sports monopoly I believe cable will continue to survive. But if cable ever loses the NFL and MLB, monopoly, cable will be in a lot of trouble.
Amazed #7459 December 2, 2015 9:47 am 0
I, too, tried cutting the cord with Sling about 3 months ago. Sling worked great for about a week. Then, the season premiers started, more people joined the network in droves, and the system was quickly overwhelmed, and the bandwidth wouldn’t handle it. They blamed it on their viewing app, which was under constant development and never worked right, hanging, rebooting, etc. It all came to a head during the Walking Dead season premier, which I don’t watch, but apparently I’m the only human who doesn’t. It not only crashed that channel, but all of the channels for at least a week. They refuse to use browsers, like everyone else like Netflix and Hulu, and stick to their app, which never worked right. Unfortunately, I cut the cord and picked up Sling at the same time. I should have waited.Before you cut the cord, try it for at least two months. I plan on trying again, but waiting until the get all the bugs worked out.
thezman #7460 December 2, 2015 9:52 am 0
Good to know. They have a free trial so I will do that and see how it works. I’ll most likely use Kodi for most things, but I’ll want ESPN for college sports.
aka jhon #7506 December 5, 2015 9:36 pm 0
We also cut the cable,,just Netflix,amazon and a program called Kodi which has more channels including all major news,,worldwide,even ole’ alex Jones etc..Don’t ask,,my son hooked me up because he is more savvy on these things than I am.. All crises are used as pretexts to move the ratchet of state power ever forward. It has always been thus and will forever be thus.
UKer #7458 December 2, 2015 4:39 am 0
Like you, Z, I only tend to be interested in the news when something unexpected happens. Otherwise it is the same old regurgitation of the tired leftoid opinions you have seen before. Last night here, for example, I refused to put the main news program on because the ‘news’ would be about the Paris climate change conference, and the accompanying images would be full of smug, well-fed people earnestly telling us we have to pay more taxes or the planet will die in the next few years. As this is a message that we have heard at least twice before and are still here, then I know how it plays out. In the studio there will be anxious faces with furrowed brows talking over stock footage of typhoons, poor children looking hungry, chimneys belching black smoke, glaciers falling into the sea, dried crops on baked ground and so on with perhaps a shot of a line of cars in the morning rush hour just to show it is also our fault too, and not just Asia or Africa.But one thing I would say is that the great thing with TV news is that you can treat it like radio and really get what they think. The message is the same but TV news, at least with the BBC here, is subject to either a disapproving or approving tone. If you aren’t watching the screen then you can hear, far more clearly than when being bombarded by images, the sneer or subservience in their voices. A bunch of rabid socialists says this and there is a lifting of the ‘newsreaders’ tone to one of hope and approval. Some right wingers say something else however and you can almost hear the lips curl and the tone shift to one of near hatred.As for the man-made climate change rubbish on BBC news, the tone is one of utter obeisance mixed with hatred of capitalism and joy that more taxes can be squeezed out of people.
Dutch #7471 December 2, 2015 10:48 pm 0
I do the opposite, turn off the sound and simply watch the people. Remember, 80% of one’s impressions are non-verbal. Hillary and Obama come across as very deceitful and angry people when you simply watch them speak. Hillary looks down her nose like the Red Queen. Obama, Hillary, and Biden like to flash those quick, wide, creepy grins like the Cesar Romero Joker from Batman. Warren is anger and deceit on steroids. Boehner is repressed anger and deceit. Sanders has the anger without the deceit, and a fair amount of earnestness. Rubio is the TV weatherman talking head. Cruz is always the tough prosecuter, bearing down. Bush looks like he doesn’t want to be there, or perhaps just got caught cutting the cheese in a crowded room. Carson looks the total kind and innocent person, perhaps too passive. Trump, well, he is always passionate, and he just goes, like an Energizer bunny. He looks like a guy who flat doesn’t care what you think, he is simply pounding away at what he thinks. But he comes up for air, flashes a cute smile, and all is forgiven. I can get all this, and I don’t need to listen to all the blather. BTW, Obamas ears really stick out. He is an angry-lying-ears-stick-out guy with an awful sneer when he speaks.
james wilson #7457 December 1, 2015 11:15 pm 0
It sounds like a variation on the BBC, except we are not actually forced to pay for it. Yet. I have been accused many times of getting my opinions from Fox. “I don’t own a tv.” Now they are even more appalled. Not owning a tv or having a page on the social media is considered a marker for serial killers or terrorist.


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