Almost Superb Streaming

Last night, the Super Bowl happened.  Two teams.  One of them won.  There were commercials.  And I did not watch any of it.  Partly because I write this early on Sunday afternoons, but more because I don't care.

Maybe that makes me un-American.  I like to think that it makes me a new American.  One who better things to do than watch a contrived sporting contest (practice guitar, cook dinner, do the dishes, clean the bathrooms, write this blog).  And, if ESPN's subscriber loss is any indication, I'm not alone.

With all of that in mind, the advent of the Super Bowl seems a good time to take a look at the state of cord cutting and how technology has changes what and how we consume entertainment.  Buckle up, mes amigos.

How Do You Watch a Superb Owl?

The numbers for the game are not available as of this writing (because the game has not been played yet), but we can get a bit of an understanding from last year's numbers.  112 million people watched the game in a way that could be tracked.  That is a lot of you who cared, though slightly less than 2016 as the viewership was down from 114 million.

Of those 112 million, 1.7 million streamed it in some fashion, slightly more than 1%.  Not a ringing endorsement for live video streaming, though an increase from 1.4 million the previous year.  Why not more?  I have a few thoughts.

Not Ready for Prime Time Players

The biggest issue has to be fear.  Fear of buffering and compression issues.  It is one thing when a TV show pauses to buffer but then picks right up where it paused.  It is an entirely different issue when a live feed does it and then skips five seconds to catch up.  That means you may miss a critical play or the punchline of the ad.

Last year, there were issues with Fox Sport's feed during the fourth quarter.  Apparently, that was the best fourth quarter of any Super Bowl ever.  Which must have been hugely frustrating for those 1.7 million streamers-who-cared.  Despite that, my guess is that there will be an increase in streaming for the game, mostly because there are more services that offered a stream.

Over The Air Freedom

Fortunately, if you live in a Designated Marketing Area (DMA), then you probably have access to an Over The Air (OTA) feed of the game.  Also called hooking an antenna up to your TV.  Despite the recent actions of the FCC, this particular mandate remains: antenna broadcast is still free to the viewer.

Which makes it the MOST American way to watch the Big Game.  If you want to watch it.

Always Two Years Away

What all of this boils down to is that streaming has come a long way, from the days of download-then-watch to 4K HDR streams of the latest content.  But the infrastructure is still not there for live events.  Not 100%.  It has gotten better but it is going to take things like a full roll out of 5G to make it completely robust.  Which is at least 2 years out, and maybe farther for complete Prime Time readiness.

Just in time for the then 18-49 year old demographic to stop caring.