Jazz musician Bill Cunliffe loves television — but he doesn’t watch it on a TV set.
“I can watch anything I want, any time I want,” he said, “on my bottom-of-the-line Mac PowerBook.”
Cunliffe, 53, is one of a growing number of TV viewers who get all their programs via the Internet.
For reasons that include saving money, convenience, personal choice and a hatred of commercials, these viewers are cutting the cord from cable, satellite and telephone suppliers of TV service.
“The idea that you come home and your entertainment choices are dictated on what some entertainment channel decides is not for me,” said video-game producer Chris Codding, whose Los Angeles apartment has a 52-inch Sony television that’s used only for video games and viewing DVDs.
“I really like the concept of having something in your mind that you want to watch,” Codding said, “and then going to the computer and watching it.”
There have been no mainstream studies on just how many people have cut the cord to established TV program suppliers, and the percentage of viewers who have done it is probably small. But there’s plenty of evidence that the number of people who are watching TV shows online is growing.
According to a survey released in September by the nonprofit Conference Board, nearly 1 in 4 U.S. households has watched television online. Meanwhile, about 20 percent of responders said they were watching less TV delivered through traditional broadcast or paid cable-type providers.
A study by Frank N. Magid Associates in April found that among people who have watched video online, 25 percent viewed a full-length TV show in that manner. That’s up from 15 percent in 2007.
Viewers who watch on their computers (or a computer hooked to a TV) have vastly more choices. According to the Fancast website, which provides links to online video, there are more than 1,000 former and current TV series with full episodes available.
Common among many who have cut the cord is a sense of rebellion, not against TV but against service providers.
“Clearly this is a growing trend,” said Alex Dudley, spokesman for Time Warner Cable, which has 14.6 million subscribers nationwide.
The company, like several other providers, is countering with its own on-demand services. It offers subscribers repeats of TV shows that can be accessed by pressing a few buttons on the remote.
But online TV has something going for it that cable can’t match. For the most part, it’s free, at least for now.
“We were paying about $100 for month for cable,” said Jaxon Lee, 36, a mobile-phone sales manager who lives in Atlanta. “For that we got like a billion channels. But when we were making a move, I asked my wife, ‘How many of these shows are we actually watching?’ “
