The Living Room
Television's turn — from Nielsen-rated broadcast to streaming, cord-cutting and the writers who stopped the machine.
TiVo arrived at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 1999 and taught viewers to skip the thirty-second spot. YouTube posted its first video in April 2005 and was bought by Google for $1.65 billion in stock eighteen months later. Netflix launched streaming in January 2007 alongside the red envelope, and by February 2013 was producing its own series.
The count that measures all of it is Nielsen’s. Pay-television households peaked at roughly 105 million in 2012 and fell below 75 million by 2020. The Writers Guild had already struck for a hundred days over residuals for a delivery method that barely existed when the previous contract was written.
Ratings
Nielsen’s pay-TV count, 105 million households down to 75.
The stream
TiVo 1999, YouTube 2005, Netflix streaming January 2007.
Public channels
C-SPAN from 1979, public access under the 1984 Act.
- The Nielsen Line That Only Goes One WayNielsen's annual Total Audience Reports show pay-television households declining from a peak of roughly 105 million in 2012 to below 75 million by 2020, a fall that proceeded at an accelerating rate once streaming bundles offered a legal alternative at lower cost.Standard piece
- The Red Envelope Was Already LosingNetflix launched its streaming service in January 2007 alongside its existing DVD-by-mail business, and by 2011 the two operations were briefly separated — the DVD side as Qwikster, a name retracted within three weeks — before streaming became the company's sole identity.Standard piece
- Eighteen Seconds at the San Diego ZooYouTube's first uploaded video — eighteen seconds of co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo, posted on 23 April 2005 — preceded the site's public launch by months; Google acquired it for $1.65 billion in stock in October 2006.Short piece
- The Machine That Taught Viewers to SkipTiVo launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 1999 and gave domestic viewers the first commercially accessible tool for pausing live television and skipping advertisements — a capability the broadcast networks identified immediately as a threat to the thirty-second spot.Short piece
- The Strike Was About a Number Nobody Had YetThe Writers Guild of America struck from November 2007 to February 2008 over residual payments for content delivered by internet streaming — a revenue stream that barely existed at the time the previous contract was written in 1988.Standard piece
- Premium That Came With the Cable BillHBO Go launched in 2010 as a streaming companion to an active cable subscription — not as a standalone product — and its existence illustrated the tension at the centre of the bundle: the most-wanted channels could not be unbundled without destroying the economics of the channels that subsidised them.Short piece
- Channel 10, Aurora, Illinois, 10:30 on a SaturdayPublic-access cable television — mandated by the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, which required cable operators to provide channels for community use — gave local residents unmediated broadcast time and became the template for Wayne's World, the Aurora, Illinois sketch that moved from public access to Saturday Night Live in 1988.Standard piece
- Gavel to Gavel, No CommentaryC-SPAN began broadcasting House of Representatives floor proceedings on 19 March 1979, funded by the cable industry as a public-affairs service operating without commercial advertising, editorial commentary or correspondent stand-ups.Short piece