The #1 reason why people download TV shows is because of the ridiculous cable company packages.
Give you an example.
You cannot get the HBO channel by itself. You have to buy a huge package just to get HBO.
On Bell Fibe TV you have to buy three specialty channel packages plus the regular basic cable just to get HBO. You cannot get basic cable plus just HBO.
Game of Thrones
True Blood
Boardwalk Empire
The Newsroom
True Detective
Girls
Entourage
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Eastbound and Down
Veep
Real Time w/ Bill Maher
Looking
Silicon Valley
John Oliver: LWT
Doll and Em
The Leftovers
Hello Ladies
Hard Knocks
Family Tree
Treme
Getting On
Dark Tower
American Gods
Well then you are actually better off financially to just download your favourite shows rather than pay for three specialty channel packages just to get HBO. It is not legal strictly speaking, but lets face it, it is the movie industry that is more worried about copyright / downloading.
Now admittedly it is not HBOs fault (or is it?) that the cable companies are trying to ripoff customers with their ridiculous cable packages that require people to spend a fortune just so they can watch ONE show.
Which for many people will probably be Game of Thrones.
Or maybe it is their fault... HBO is a subsidiary of Time Warner, which owns Time Warner Cable... and presumably sells their programming to other cable companies at specific rates - perhaps even requiring in contract that those cable companies sell "packages" instead of individual channels so they can make more profit.
Except what about all the profit they end up losing from people who still have cable (and likely cable internet) and then decide to download their favourite TV shows instead?
I even started an informal poll on Facebook to see how many favourite TV shows people have - which could be used as an indicator as to how many shows people likely download regularly (unless they have the necessary cable packages for all of their faves).
For some people they might only like 1 TV show, which means they would only need to download the 1. Or they might like 5, 10, 15 or more shows and download them regularly.
If they have a Netflix account that gives them more options, but Netflix in Canada is very limited. It only gets a tiny portion of the TV shows that Americans get on Netflix.
As society changes towards downloading TV via Netflix and free downloads TV viewers are also becoming more discerning. They want high quality shows - and they're willing to pay for them - but they are not willing to get ripped off just because cable companies want to sell overpriced packages.
Cable companies are going to have to adapt if they want to survive. Offering the channels people want individually would be a smart first move.
We are all buying million dollar professional athletes-it is not coming from Rogers pockets. Just plain thievery. Now they have taken AMC off and put it in a package that costs$60. Let's all find another hobby besides tv - can't stand their robbery any longer.
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