How do you watch TV? I have been a Tata Sky DTH subscriber for the last 10 years - infact ever since the service was introduced in my city (Jalandhar,PB). And in its 10th year, I am finally ending the subscription. I have no issues with TataSky DTH services, but the problem is that both the set top boxes in our house have not been powered on for over an year. The last time I watched 'direct' TV was sometime in January 2017 when Federer defeated Nadal in the finals of the AO. Ever since, and especially due to the deluge of broadband/4G data caused by the entry of Jio, we as a family have been watching all content through the internet using one platform or the other. Indeed, internet or web based platforms have become our exclusive source of information and entertainment.
Just two years back I remember, i had to switch off the broadband at night or else I would run the risk of my sister exhausting the quota of high speed data and me being left to struggle with speeds of 512kbps. And now, as i check my Airtel account I see that I have 543 GB of unused data! Whats more all this data can fly at speeds of 16mbps. And the party doesn't end there - I am paying half the price for this than what I was paying for that clogged pipe two years back.
I calculated that together between the 5 members of my family, every month we get access to almost 600- 700GB of broadband/4G data at a total price of about Rs 2100/-. Since everything is Airtel so the above includes freebies like annual retention incentives, free broadband data for each post paid mobile connection and carry forward data.
What this has led to is a radical transformation of how we consume content.
I will describe below how the different types of content gets consumed now: General Entertainment (GEC): Two things have happened. The type of content being watched has changed and the way its watched has changed. The former relates to a shift from Indian content to global content. It can again be attributed to deteriorating quality of GEC content on air, that my family is happier watching Pakistani dramas or American sitcoms or British TV. At first these were mostly sourced from Youtube and watched by connecting the mobile/ laptop to TV, but now almost always casted from a mobile/tab or connected through mobile when using Amazon Prime. Movies:Cinema halls for that irresistible Friday release and Amazon Prime/Netflix/Google Play and Youtube for everything else. Sports:Now this is where TV added value till very recently. I knew no other way of watching a live premier league/ La liga or Champions League match than on TV. But given these matches are mostly held at night and due to other things taking precedence, I am content reading about the happenings and watching highlights on Youtube the next day. Learning & Knowledge: Me and my daughter get our fill through Youtube. There is great choice and almost every topic that comes to mind is covered. It is always watched directly on the laptop or iPad. News: This matters the least. Mostly due to falling quality levels and the way reporting was done we stopped watching Hindi/Punjabi news ages ago. And then Arnab Goswami happened to English news and post 2014, I don't think any of us ever switched on a news channel. All news is now consumed through mobile websites and the newspaper.
Apart from the content and way it is watched, I have also observed some other changes in our common behavior:
- In general we as a family are spending more time together in front of the TV now than probably anytime since the first two seasons of KBC were aired!
- Instead of regular TV, it is now watched in one go on some weekend or a holiday.
- This change probably occurred to us because we didn't watch much TV - not more than 4 -5 hours in a fortnight. DTH could have been still relevant, had we been watching more TV.
- Entertainment through TV/Movies in general is on a downward decline. We are travelling more often/ going out on dinner or lunches more often and also pursuing individual hobbies more intensely. I dont know if age is a contributing factor to this.
Overall I am rather surprised at how swiftly our TV watching experience has changed. Just two years back the thought of having no DTH connection was unimaginable (even if we watched TV sparsely) - for, wasn't that the reason why the TV was hanging in the family room?!
I am just curious to know how prevalent is this trend? is it just our family or have viewing habits in generally changed dramatically in the recent past. |