Despite economic hard times, people are still addicted to cable TV

Nick | Oct 29, 2008 | Comments 0

Americans, it seems, are addicted to cable TV. Like every other addiction, we need our hit so bad that we’ll ignore the realities of our financial situation—we’re all going broke, fast—in order to watch Entourage and Down and Dirty with Jim Norton.

It goes like this: with people tightening their belts around the country (and world) they’re going to have to cut back on luxuries. Thing thing is, for whatever reason, Americans don’t view cable TV (and cellphones!) as a luxury; we need it, even though we could be saving a nice chunk of change (around $100 I’m guessing… that’s what I used to pay) by eliminating it from the family budget.

Next week is when a lot of the big cable companies, like Comcast and Time Warner, report their third quarter

earnings. That’s when we’ll see whether or not the current financial crisis, which started in earnest in September, has affected their cable TV consumption habit.

Further evidence: sales of HDTVs this holiday shopping season aren’t expected to be all that bad. Maybe sales won’t be great, but people are still expected to spend a few dollars on plasmas and LCDs.

For the readers in the audience, be sure to check out Amusing Ourselves to Death, a book that says, essentially, our society is doomed because the only thing people do all day long is watch TV.