From the Norman TV View

If you read my last article here on the Norman TV View, you already know where this is headed. Cord-cutting, which started as a way to escape the rising costs of cable and satellite, has come full circle. Instead of liberation from the cord, we’ve simply rebooted it. The cord is still there — it’s just delivering our programming through the internet now instead of a coaxial cable in the wall. Same destination, different road.

So why did we cut the cord to begin with? That’s a great question, and honestly, one I’ve been asking myself more and more lately.

The original reason was simple: reduce the cost of watching our favorite programming. We bought antennas, streaming boxes, and plug-in devices to receive what we wanted without paying a cable or satellite bill. And there were some genuinely good things that came out of the transition to digital broadcasting. Picture quality improved significantly.

Reception got better over time as the old analog channels disappeared and people figured out the right antennas for their situations.

Speaking of antennas — allow me to get a little technical for just a moment. Feel free to skip the next paragraph if that’s not your thing.

Digital reception was a finicky beast after the transition, and here’s the simple reason why. With the old analog signals, you might remember something called “ghosting” — that double or blurry image on your screen caused by what engineers call multi-path interference. Annoying, but you could still watch. With digital signals, that same interference doesn’t give you a blurry picture — it kills the signal entirely. The digital data streams fall out of sync, and the processor simply can’t sort it out. That’s an oversimplification, but it matters if you use or plan to use an antenna. I covered this in my 2019 book, and after years of living with digital signals, I’ve learned even more. It’s a topic I’ll likely revisit here in a future article.

On the positive side, the number of digital channels available in my area has more than doubled in the last seven years, making antenna use more appealing than ever for cord-cutters. The catch is that antenna alone won’t get you everything you want to watch — and that’s exactly where the apps come in.

And that brings us to the heart of this article.

We are getting weary. As a whole, cord-cutters are exhausted by the maze of apps, subscriptions, and monthly fees required just to watch what we want, when we want to watch it. Streaming fatigue is real, and it’s settling in fast. The biggest driver, from where I sit, is cost. There are more apps than ever, most of them carrying a monthly or yearly fee, and the total keeps climbing. I mentioned in my last article that I’m personally paying about $20 more per month now than I did with cable — and getting less programming for it. I don’t think I’m alone in that.

With everything going on in the world today and prices rising across the board — gas, groceries, you name it — paying an ever-growing stack of app fees is getting harder to justify. People are starting to ask whether it’s worth it, and some are seriously considering going back to cable or satellite. Others are just cutting things off entirely.

In my opinion, the blame falls squarely on programming providers who needed to replace the income they lost when cord-cutting took off. Originally, they had a reliable revenue stream through cable and satellite re-providers. When people started leaving, that stream dried up. So they found another way to get it back — first by adding sports channels in separate tiers, then by launching their own apps, and, more recently, by pulling their original programming from other platforms to make their own apps more desirable. Every move is designed to bring the money back.

Now, I’ll soften that a little. “Force” is probably too strong a word for what they did. They simply gave viewers a choice: pay the fee and keep watching, or don’t. Reasonable enough on the surface. The problem is that those “minimal costs” have multiplied across so many providers that the total stopped being minimal a long time ago. The number of apps has at least doubled, and they’ve effectively become the new cable companies — just smaller, more numerous, and without the one-bill convenience.

Where does it go from here? In my opinion, cable and satellite providers aren’t going away — but they will continue adapting. DirecTV is already streaming its programming while still maintaining satellite service, and I believe their long-term plan is to phase satellite out entirely. Streaming will continue to grow in importance across the board. And costs will keep rising until providers either price themselves out of the market or viewers simply decide enough is enough and walk away.

That last scenario — what happens when viewers reach their breaking point — is worth its own conversation, and one I plan to have here soon.

But that’s just the Norman TV View. Time will tell if I’m right…

Hey, this is Russ, and that’s the Norman TV View… See ya next time…

All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer

© June xx, 2026 – all rights reserved

Rusty Norman, Norman-TV.com, the Norman TV View

All audio productions by www.podcastnorm.com and Pod Cast Norm Productions

All music TwoBuckThemes from Mike Stewart, unless otherwise stated

This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-norman-tv-view/id1896946017

From the Norman TV View

A lot has changed in the seven years since I wrote my book, “So…You Just Want To Watch Television?” back in 2019. There’s a big difference between cord-cutting then and cord-cutting now — and if you’re like me, you may have noticed you’re not actually saving the money you thought you’d save.

I’m willing to bet many of you never actually cut the “cord” in the original sense. Instead, you changed how the cord serves up its offerings. Maybe you kept your cable or satellite service for a while as you explored antenna and internet-delivered options, and along the way discovered things you weren’t familiar with that captured your attention and stuck around alongside what you already had.

The original idea behind cord-cutting was simple: drop the “pay for” services, switch to off-air antenna reception, and use your existing internet service to pick up the rest — for free, or close to it. Some people did exactly that. Others never fully completed the switch.

That brings up something that aggravated me even back then, especially if you’re a sports fan. Sports is where I remember the changes starting. I’m not talking about ESPN and the other sports-only channels — I mean when the major networks started spinning off their own sports channels. FOX is the one everyone will remember, with Fox Sports 1 and later Fox Sports 2. Pay TV providers immediately put those in a separate, more expensive tier. Other networks followed suit, and that’s when people really started walking away from pay TV, putting up antennas, and paying only for what they actually wanted to watch.

That sports tiering turned out to be the opening move for what’s happened across all of programming since.

Here in 2026, nearly every programming provider has its own app — and nearly all of them charge you monthly or yearly to use it. Here’s my own experience: I’m not saving a dime anymore. I’m paying about $20 more per month than I did with cable, and getting less programming for it, spread across several different apps just to watch what I want to watch. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

To be fair, the traditional pay TV providers probably still charge as much or more outright. And I’ve noticed ads on TV and radio for internet providers now copying the cheaper streaming pricing models to win customers back — bundling in their own programming packages along the way. Watch what you give up if you go back to one of those.

I wrote a whole chapter on this in my 2019 book, titled “Do You Understand What You Will Lose.” It pairs well with another chapter, “Don’t Be Fooled By The Advertising.” My opinion hasn’t changed: this is a vicious circle that always leads back to the same place. Programming has been split apart and reassembled into smaller, separately-priced pieces — not to give you more value, but to grow somebody else’s bottom line. Now, providers are pulling their original programming back from other platforms to make their own apps more desirable, which only feeds the cycle.

There’s no doubt streaming is the wave of the future and isn’t going away. The biggest problem down the road is likely going to be bandwidth. And with newer tech like ATSC 3.0 rolling out over the next months and years, the antenna landscape could change too. We just don’t know yet whether local broadcasters will eventually charge for what’s currently delivered free over antenna in some DMAs. Right now, they say they won’t — but then again, streaming was supposed to be less costly too.

That cycle — too many services, rising costs — is exactly what I’ll dig into next, in an article titled “Streaming Fatigue: Too Many Services, Rising Costs,” coming soon to the Norman TV View.

Hey, this is Russ, and that’s the Norman TV View… See ya next time…

All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer

© June 17, 2026 – all rights reserved

Rusty Norman, Norman-TV.com, the Norman TV View

All audio productions by www.podcastnorm.com and Pod Cast Norm Productions

All music TwoBuckThemes from Mike Stewart, unless otherwise stated

From the Norman TV View

Hello, again. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted here in the Norman TV View, but I plan to rectify that in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead.

Way back in 2019, I wrote and published a small book titled “So, You Just Want To Watch Television?” I wrote it because of all the questions my friends and customers asked me about cutting the cord. In it, I gave a little history of my thirty-plus years in the TV business and the knowledge I gained along the way. The questions I got most often centered on whether cutting the cord was worth it, and I tried to cover the pros and cons of doing so and what people might expect if they did. There’s a lot packed into that relatively short book, and I’ll soon be making it available as an audiobook — probably within the next 30 days. (I’ll let you know when it’s ready.)

Why bring this up now? Because my plan for this site going forward is to give you my opinion — and some good information — about the newer technologies shaping how we view our favorite programming, and where I think it’s all headed.

There’s been a lot of change since 2019, and I’m sure many of you have already experienced some of it firsthand. It was inevitable — I said as much in the book, even though I couldn’t cover everything in depth at the time.

One of the bigger conversations happening right now is how many sports teams and venues are moving their broadcasts to streaming, and how that’s affecting sports bars and other businesses that show that programming to larger audiences. I get their concerns — the way they have to handle programming across multiple TVs makes this shift hit them especially hard. But some of what they’re dealing with may end up affecting you too, in your own living room, sooner than you’d think.

That’s the kind of thing I’ll be digging into here — what these shifts actually mean for the average viewer, not just the big venues. So stick around…

Hey, this is Russ, and that’s the Norman TV View… See ya next time…

All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer

© June 13, 2026 – all rights reserved Rusty Norman, Norman-TV.com, the Norman TV View

All audio productions by www.podcastnorm.com and Pod Cast Norm Productions

All music TwoBuckThemes from Mike Stewart, unless otherwise stated

Lately, I’ve been working on posting more video items related to TVs and reception including satellite and antenna. Admittedly, things are a little slow around the TV biz right now, so… while I’m working on some new Antenna, Satellite and TV things, I thought it might be good time to offer you a little reading material of books I’ve written.

The first is, “Living Life Notes – Insights from traveling the Highway of Life.” It is my first book from several years ago BUT I have two others at AMAZON.com and more in the works. The one related to cutting the cord is titled, “So, You Just Want To Watch Television.” The last at the moment is, “More Living Life Notes – Stories and Ponderings With A Purpose.”

First, I Hope you enjoy this book trailer and maybe you will even check out one or more of my books at AMAZON.com …

Second, Thanks in advance just in case you are interested. You’ll never know what you’re missing unless you at least check them out. I’m hoping you do but, whether you do or not, I’m hoping you’ll keep visiting The Norman TV View website to check out the things I have planned for the near and distant future that I think you’ll like…

Don’t panic – you just need to Rescan…

Just for fun, let’s take a short little trip with our imaginations into a land called, Rescan. How do you get to this land? Well… if you’re a “cord cutter” – someone that receives your local broadcasts via an antenna – let’s just say you wake up one day and turn on your TV and some, or many, of your channels aren’t there for you to watch. Your first thought is they are off the air since you know they have been off often recently. You decide not to do anything because you know they will be back on the air sooner or later so you continue to make the coffee, pour a cup for yourself, grab a donut or cinnamon roll and settle in for a news-less morning and figure you’ll catch up later.

After your quiet breakfast, you get ready and head off to your job, appointments or whatever you have on your schedule, planned or unplanned. Throughout the day, you wonder why those channels are missing or how long the stations will be off air this time but go about your day anyway. Afterall, this isn’t the first time this has happened over the last several weeks or months.

You work all day, expecting to be able to watch TV when you get home. So, you get home and everything is still the same, your favorite channels are still missing. You wonder what is going on so you begin to get suspicious your antenna may be the problem. You take a quick look at your antenna and everything seems to be okay, so you decide it might be a good idea to have your antenna person take a look at it the next day.

In the meantime, you turn to Netflix and decide to make a movie night of it. While you’re bringing up you account the thought hits you to check if the local broadcast stations have messages on their websites about the loss of signals. Sure enough, the information jumps right out at you. The headline states they have changed their frequencies. You stop before moving on further and wonder WHY would they do that and does it mean you need new equipment or even a new TV? Fortunately, you read a little further and find you only need to RESCAN your TV to regain the reception of their programming. A little further in their paragraphs, you find they have general information telling you how to rescan your TVs. You follow their instructions and regain your channels, breathe a sigh of relief and start watching your favorite off air channels again…

And that my friend is how you entered the land of Rescan…

Rescan… This may be a foreign term to some of you, especially if you’re not using an antenna to receive your local broadcast stations. If you don’t use an antenna to receive your local broadcast signals and receive them through a satellite or Cable provider, you won’t need to do anything because it will be done for you. But, IF YOU USE AN ANTENNA, get ready to rescan your TV or Off-Air converter because it is happening soon. Why is this happening? Is this similar to when the FCC mandated the change of broadcast signals changing to Digital?

The reason for this is because of the FCC mandated repack, or realignment, of some frequencies to make room to accommodate 5G signals and other devices in the near and distant future. They have already sold the frequencies and are in the process of implementing the transition.

This is not new news. It has been under way for several years now. It just hasn’t been put into action until last year. It is proceeding according to the FCC plan and taking place in phases. At the present we are in phase three and soon to enter phase four. Your local broadcasters are following the FCC mandated repack phases and the timeframe applies to some differently than others.

I want you to be informed but I won’t go into a long discussion here simply because there is plenty of information available online. I will give you a couple of websites to check out, though and you should gain a better understanding even if you are already familiar with what’s going on. A few of those websites are:

https://www.TVAnswers.org

There are plenty more. If you check out one or some of these sites, you will likely discover several more you will want to check out, too.

The important things to remember during the next few months, (at least in the Fort Myers/Naples DMA) is to be patient and don’t panic… YOU JUST NEED TO RESCAN… You may have to do it several times over the coming months but understand, “this too shall pass” and things will get back to normal… eventually…

See ya next time…

Hello again… my name is Rusty Norman and I am the owner of Norman TV & Video Systems. I am so glad you’re visiting the site today and I am here to tell you I have some exciting things planned over the coming weeks, months and, yes, even years and I can’t wait to get started. In fact, I am working on several new aspects for the near and distant future and hope you will become a regular visitor to my site.

Before I move on to other things, I guess you would like to know more about my company (and me), especially if you are not familiar with Norman TV and Video Systems.

We have actually been around since early1973. That’s when we were simply called, Norman TV and located on Fort Myers Beach. That is the year my dad bought the business from the man he worked for about 10 years. Before that time it was known as, Chase TV. At that time I was going to college at FSU in Tallahassee, FL. My dad and my mom had a couple of employees and pretty much ran the business in that way for the next 12 years.

During that span of time, before and after I departed FSU, I was head mechanic at an AMF bowling establishment in Fort Myers, FL known as Miracle Lanes. Even though it is no longer in business and has been torn down, I started working there in 1969 and worked there until 1985 when I went to work for my dad at the store on Fort Myers Beach. Unfortunately, my dad died in January of 1990 and I had a big decision to make over the next few months.

Simply because of the way times change, our sales and service business on the Beach had become much too seasonal and suffered a little because of that. This had been going on for five or six years. Add to that the fact that the owner of the property we were on (and the building we were in) decided to increase our rent by almost double. That was bad enough but, they also wanted to cut the building in half and rent out the other side. To me, that meant they had just increased our rent almost 4 fold. There was no way we could justify that expense to stay in our storefront so my mom and I decided to close the store front and I took over the business from my mom in July of 1990. (Honestly, she didn’t want to continue in the business any longer – her heart just wasn’t in it any more especially since the death of my dad.)

At that time, it was hard to find an affordable storefront, good help and be able to afford to pay them year round so I decided to become a mobile repair company and try to service our regular customers, both residential and commercial, in that way. It was a busy time for me and I worked many hours since I was by myself. I used to get up early in the morning and work on TV’s that I had to bring in for repairs, by 9-10am I was out on service calls and deliveries and back generally somewhere between 6-8 pm. Then I would work on the things I had either brought in earlier or from that day, eat supper with my family go to bed and start all over again early the next morning.

That worked for a while but I admit it did wear me out, particularly during the busy season. After a time of a few years, once again the changing business climate caused me to re-evaluate where my strengths were.  Even though I remained as a mobile service TV and electronics repair company, I slowly switched over to mostly signal delivery and maintenance of distribution systems for properties like hotels, motels, private schools, residences both large and small, which I had already been doing along with the other parts of the business. In 1997 I started branching out into the smaller satellite services like Dish Network and DirecTV, in particular maintaining the previous MATV (Master Antenna TeleVision) systems my dad had previously installed and updated some of those systems to SMATV (Satellite Master Antenna TeleVision.) I also worked with other types of properties as well and installed many satellite, antenna and satellite/antenna head end systems for commercial and residential customers and others.

Since most of what I did and do is on property, I used to recommend a couple of friends of mine for TV service. Unfortunately, they closed their doors in July of this year (2014)  and I really do not recommend other repair services locally because I don’t know them well enough. I can still diagnose TV problems but since most repairs on the newer sets are relatively expensive and generally require shop time, I do not make a habit of recommending all that many repairs anymore. With my friends out of the service business, I don’t make recommendations for other repair places but that doesn’t mean there are no other servicers available but I am not familiar enough with them and cannot comfortably make recommendations so I don’t.

Just because I don’t service that many TV’s these days doesn’t mean I have lost touch with the newer technology. I do try my level best to stay up to date on the new technology and still do preliminary diagnostics on many TVs especially in the places where I perform the services I offer with people and companies I have dealt with for years.

So what do I mean when I say I have switched over mostly to signal delivery and maintenance? Well, I mean I work with and on systems that deliver programming to your TV, Radios and “other types” of reception equipment. To clarify, that means satellite, antenna and streaming media products, some of which I will go into more detail in articles in the future, hopefully a minimum of once a month and sometimes more often. I even work with and on that type of equipment in RV’s although I do put certain limitations on the work I will perform.

What are some of those “other types” of equipment? Well, to get the best answer to that question you will need to visit this site often. I know you will find things of interest here on a regular basis when you do…

See ya next time…