If your New Year's resolution includes cutting the cable cord in favor of internet television, you're not alone.
Fed up with the rising cost of traditional pay TV and emboldened by competitively priced streaming options, a growing number of viewers are expected to turn in their cable boxes and make 2017 the year of the cord cutter.
"We're not in the cable era anymore," said Howard Horowitz, a longtime media researcher whose clients include HBO, Comcast and ABC. "The threshold has been crossed."
Internet television, also known as over the top, bypasses cable and delivers video directly to viewers through a broadband connection. Major players include subscription video-on-demand services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, as well as linear streaming services such as Sling TV and the recently launched DirecTV Now, which air dozens of cable channels in real time.
Cord cutters and cord shavers — subscribers who trim their cable packages — are part of a shifting pay-TV paradigm. Millennials are at the leading edge of the trend, with 89 percent watching internet television, according to Horowitz.
"Streaming has reached critical mass and it's actually the new normal for millennials," Horowitz said.
A wealth of content has turned internet TV from homegrown cat videos into mainstream programming. From Emmy Award-winning original shows such as "House of Cards" on Netflix to broadcast networks and cable staples such as ESPN, choice abounds. Internet TV also gave rise to binge watching, and allows viewers to take the shows wherever they go on portable devices.
Traditional pay-TV remains the norm for nearly 100 million households in the U.S., who pay an average of more than $100 per month to their cable or satellite provider, according to Leichtman Research Group.
While many viewers subscribe to both a traditional pay-TV provider and an internet-TV service, an increasing number are abandoning cable and satellite for "skinnier" internet bundles of programming.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-cable-cord-cutting-1216-biz-20161215-story.htmlI'm a CordCutter myself.