Sign of the times, Bulls viewership down 63%

[dougthonus]

I always wonder how they measure these things. I mean I know about Nielsen obviously. Do they still have **** boxes in people's houses measuring OTA viewership lol?

I've watched more games this year than in recent years due to the free OTA experience which is huge IMO.

FWIW, they have ways to measure across a variety of platforms now, so the ratings are not the old school nielsen boxes in people's homes.

[Jcool0]

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[MrSparkle]

Is it a matter of broadcasting a stronger signal? For whatever reason, it was the only channel that wouldn’t work on my folk’s main TV (downstairs). The upstairs TV worked perfectly fine- if everyone in Chicagoland could get it working, I doubt there’d be any complaints about getting a free broadcast instead of paying the evil Comcast empire. But it’s strange the signal is not working for many people.

The last 2 years, my Bulls-interest sunk to new lows. If Billy stuck to a normal development rotation (Ayo-Giddey-Matas-Pat-Jalen-Phillips-Terry) I’d be more interested… but seeing Jevon, Huerter is no bueno.

And Vuc- perhaps my least favorite big-minute Bull of all-time. He’s hard to watch. When his offense is sharp he’s fine, but he’s so pouty, defensive candy, brick/bunny-miss machine. Season 5 of him in full-time minutes is tough.

Lastly, Coby. Just a full-on decline. When he’s making 3Ps it’s a big boost. His spacing threat helps. But the decision making, defense and FG% all regressed. I don’t like how he’s playing an ambiguous perimeter position, with multiple small guards. He was best in a concrete 2-man game (Demar or Vuc), basically as the PG. But they moved him back to a primary SG role, and he’s starting to feel like Mini Ron Mercer.

Either way I don’t think he’s destined for a greatness, but it does him no favors playing with so many bad and undersized defensive players. Just tired of watching these guys get scored on mercilessly 1on1, as well as get stuffed any time they make a play to the rim.

Oh yeah, did I mention Pat? Tremendously frustrating core. Coby-Pat-Vuc: together since AK’s first year. A league-worst trio of continuity.

[_txchilibowl_]

They could be playing in my front yard and I wouldn't watch. Though that has less to do with the Bulls and more to do with my general disdain for the current NBA game.

I'm way more in to the WNBA honestly...

[dougthonus]

The CHSN thing is so funny to me. When the Mavs went from an OTA + paid streaming version instead of an RSN, they were praised for offering it for free. When the Bulls do it, everyone whines “nobody can find/get” the channel, which is nonsense.

I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to pay for CHSN given the 3 teams available on it are terrible, but i’s a choice. And CHSN broadcasts from cities all across the Midwest for free, so for $20-40 for an antenna and 5 minutes of setup time, most (but not all) people in the Midwest can tune in for free.

I suspect viewership would be better if there were a product worth watching.

I don't know what the Mavs did, but I think part of the problem was the channel they purchased doesn't have local air rights on people's cable boxes (that may not have been the same for other local channels that may have been bundled into the providers already). So people whom already had local channels through other means were disrupted into trying to configure antennas whereas if they did something else that may not have been true.

Also, configuring an antenna is not an easy process for many people. If your TV is in the basement, it's actually a major effort to get it to work.

The other problem is the broadcast towers they have seem lousy. My signal on CHSN in a 2nd story building with no obstructions is still pretty mediocre. My IPTV stream is better, and I just figured better to use that than the antenna even though it has like a 1-2 minute delay.

It's also extra work to take an Antenna stream and be able to flip it into something that does replay and creates the same experience you had with other providers, same with recording. I actually spent a good amount of money trying to do all this stuff with plex and hdhomerun and it kind of all sucks.

In the end, this adds up to the fact that the Antenna experience is lousy or impractical for most people, and the cost of doing non-antenna is now dramatically higher.

This would have been mitigated if they got their games on WCIU or something that was already bundled into local broadcasts and had a reasonable broadcast strength OTA.

[League Circles]

I always wonder how they measure these things. I mean I know about Nielsen obviously. Do they still have **** boxes in people's houses measuring OTA viewership lol?

I've watched more games this year than in recent years due to the free OTA experience which is huge IMO.

FWIW, they have ways to measure across a variety of platforms now, so the ratings are not the old school nielsen boxes in people's homes.

Hard to imagine how they could accurately measure OTA specific viewing. I suppose I could imagine some code integrated into smart TVs to send the data back somehow, but I kinda doubt that, and more importantly, hard to imagine how they know how many non-smart TVs that aren't even internet connected are receiving OTA signals.

[dougthonus]

Hard to imagine how they could accurately measure OTA specific viewing. I suppose I could imagine some code integrated into smart TVs to send the data back somehow, but I kinda doubt that, and more importantly, hard to imagine how they know how many non-smart TVs that aren't even internet connected are receiving OTA signals.

No idea what they can and can't measure or how they do it, I'm sure it's a combination of approaches now. I agree that it seems challenging to measure OTA, but we figured out how to run electricity through sand in such a way that it's smart enough to pass the Bar exam, so I won't limit myself to guessing what seems plausible.

I just had a buddy who worked at Nielsen about 10 years ago, and I told him to get me a box so I could influence the ratings, and he said they don't really do that anymore or maybe that it wasn't a big part of what they do anymore.

[panthermark]

I bet a rooftop antenna would work well. Not ideal obviously, but you'd probably get many dozens of channels including CHSN completely for free indefinitely.

There's gonna be some clunkiness to the overall societal transition away from big TV packages to the more a la carte offerings that make more sense going forward. I get that the notion of paying $20/month during the season means more spending to people who pay for cable, satellite, or IP "cable", but those are all going away soon enough and the high costs of them will be replaced by a basket of a la carte products that the average consumer prefers for the same total dollars. I know I wildly prefer my combo of free OTA, Netflix, Prime, YouTube Premium etc over a traditional cable-like package, and for much less money.

The issue is that I'm not going to put a roof antenna on my house just to watch a lousy Bulls team.
The only thing I ever watch on network TV is football, basketball, and maybe the Olympics, so an outdoor antenna would really only be used for CHN.

Because I work from home, I'm always going to have a high-speed internet connection. Be it cable or not, everything I would watch would be available from a streaming service.

They really need to either up their OTA signal strength, or broadcast on a more available channel(s) will where EVERYONE through out all of northern Illinois can easily pick up their signal(s) with cheap antennas in any room. That means repeaters in Rockford, Dekalb and Joliet at least...maybe even at Ottawa or LaSalle.

Whoever made this decision really screwed up.

[League Circles]

Hard to imagine how they could accurately measure OTA specific viewing. I suppose I could imagine some code integrated into smart TVs to send the data back somehow, but I kinda doubt that, and more importantly, hard to imagine how they know how many non-smart TVs that aren't even internet connected are receiving OTA signals.

No idea what they can and can't measure or how they do it, I'm sure it's a combination of approaches now. I agree that it seems challenging to measure OTA, but we figured out how to run electricity through sand in such a way that it's smart enough to pass the Bar exam, so I won't limit myself to guessing what seems plausible.

I just had a buddy who worked at Nielsen about 10 years ago, and I told him to get me a box so I could influence the ratings, and he said they don't really do that anymore or maybe that it wasn't a big part of what they do anymore.

Funny, one of my best friends also worked as an analyst for Nielsen. I think they just ignore OTA and pretend it's irrelevant, which frankly is probably reasonably true.

[League Circles]

I bet a rooftop antenna would work well. Not ideal obviously, but you'd probably get many dozens of channels including CHSN completely for free indefinitely.

There's gonna be some clunkiness to the overall societal transition away from big TV packages to the more a la carte offerings that make more sense going forward. I get that the notion of paying $20/month during the season means more spending to people who pay for cable, satellite, or IP "cable", but those are all going away soon enough and the high costs of them will be replaced by a basket of a la carte products that the average consumer prefers for the same total dollars. I know I wildly prefer my combo of free OTA, Netflix, Prime, YouTube Premium etc over a traditional cable-like package, and for much less money.

The issue is that I'm not going to put a roof antenna on my house just to watch a lousy Bulls team.
The only thing I ever watch on network TV is football, basketball, and maybe the Olympics, so an outdoor antenna would really only be used for CHN.

Because I work from home, I'm always going to have a high-speed internet connection. Be it cable or not, everything I would watch would be available from a streaming service.

They really need to either up their OTA signal strength, or broadcast on a more available channel(s) will where EVERYONE through out all of northern Illinois can easily pick up their signal(s) with cheap antennas in any room. That means repeaters in Rockford, Dekalb and Joliet at least...maybe even at Ottawa or LaSalle.

Whoever made this decision really screwed up.

I might be wrong but I don't think signal strength or proximity of towers Will ever come particularly close to solving the problem of trying to get indoor reception. Even rooftop reception issues can never be solved by that. However, there is a reason that virtually every house in America used to have a rooftop antenna. It's vastly superior to indoor arrangement.

[HearshotKDS]

Ive been watching the games through the means provided in the "bulls subreddit discord" which is a mouthful. We go to bed early so i only get to watch the first half.

[kodo]

For me every other channel OTA is 100%/100% signal strength/quality. It's fantastic TBH. Except CHSN.

CHSN cheaped out on their equipment, it's drastically different than every other channel. I went through 4 antennas finding one that could work, I'm less than 20 miles from downtown center. And there's only a 12" x 12" area in my house I can get a full game without stuttering. It's the only OTA channel with any of these problems.

The entire OTA thing is probably just unimportant to them, they probably wanted the deals with all the streaming services that never happened + assumed people would pay $20/month for the app.

[panthermark]

I bet a rooftop antenna would work well. Not ideal obviously, but you'd probably get many dozens of channels including CHSN completely for free indefinitely.

There's gonna be some clunkiness to the overall societal transition away from big TV packages to the more a la carte offerings that make more sense going forward. I get that the notion of paying $20/month during the season means more spending to people who pay for cable, satellite, or IP "cable", but those are all going away soon enough and the high costs of them will be replaced by a basket of a la carte products that the average consumer prefers for the same total dollars. I know I wildly prefer my combo of free OTA, Netflix, Prime, YouTube Premium etc over a traditional cable-like package, and for much less money.

The issue is that I'm not going to put a roof antenna on my house just to watch a lousy Bulls team.
The only thing I ever watch on network TV is football, basketball, and maybe the Olympics, so an outdoor antenna would really only be used for CHN.

Because I work from home, I'm always going to have a high-speed internet connection. Be it cable or not, everything I would watch would be available from a streaming service.

They really need to either up their OTA signal strength, or broadcast on a more available channel(s) will where EVERYONE through out all of northern Illinois can easily pick up their signal(s) with cheap antennas in any room. That means repeaters in Rockford, Dekalb and Joliet at least...maybe even at Ottawa or LaSalle.

Whoever made this decision really screwed up.

I might be wrong but I don't think signal strength or proximity of towers Will ever come particularly close to solving the problem of trying to get indoor reception. Even rooftop reception issues can never be solved by that. However, there is a reason that virtually every house in America used to have a rooftop antenna. It's vastly superior to indoor arrangement.

Virtually every house in America used to have a landline for their phone. Times change.
A rooftop antenna may be superior, but if people are not willing to go through the hassle of installing such a contraption, it won't matter. Especially if a small, easy to blend-in or hide indoor antenna can pick up other OTA channels. Remember, modern smart TV's have built-in apps, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, so TV's can be mounted anywhere in (or out of) a house or garage and you can get whatever you want via the internet. That is the technological competition for OTA (along with cable, cellular and sat service)

Right now the Bulls offer the double whammy of a really bad product and a really bad distribution channel.

[panthermark]

For me every other channel OTA is 100%/100% signal strength/quality. It's fantastic TBH. Except CHSN.

CHSN cheaped out on their equipment, it's drastically different than every other channel. I went through 4 antennas finding one that could work, I'm less than 20 miles from downtown center. And there's only a 12" x 12" area in my house I can get a full game without stuttering. It's the only OTA channel with any of these problems.

The entire OTA thing is probably just unimportant to them, they probably wanted the deals with all the streaming services that never happened + assumed people would pay $20/month for the app.

If that fee was $2 instead of $20, maybe I would consider it. My cable bill didn't decrease by $20 when they left, so I'm not going to spend that type of money on a horrible Bulls, Sox, and Blackhawks team. Especially if I'm really only interested in the Bulls unless one of the other teams are in the post-season (ha!).

[League Circles]

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Lol, someone needs to tell CNBC what the word "official" means.

[League Circles]

The issue is that I'm not going to put a roof antenna on my house just to watch a lousy Bulls team.
The only thing I ever watch on network TV is football, basketball, and maybe the Olympics, so an outdoor antenna would really only be used for CHN.

Because I work from home, I'm always going to have a high-speed internet connection. Be it cable or not, everything I would watch would be available from a streaming service.

They really need to either up their OTA signal strength, or broadcast on a more available channel(s) will where EVERYONE through out all of northern Illinois can easily pick up their signal(s) with cheap antennas in any room. That means repeaters in Rockford, Dekalb and Joliet at least...maybe even at Ottawa or LaSalle.

Whoever made this decision really screwed up.

I might be wrong but I don't think signal strength or proximity of towers Will ever come particularly close to solving the problem of trying to get indoor reception. Even rooftop reception issues can never be solved by that. However, there is a reason that virtually every house in America used to have a rooftop antenna. It's vastly superior to indoor arrangement.

Virtually every house in America used to have a landline for their phone. Times change.
A rooftop antenna may be superior, but if people are not willing to go through the hassle of installing such a contraption, it won't matter. Especially if a small, easy to blend-in or hide indoor antenna can pick up other OTA channels. Remember, modern smart TV's have built-in apps, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, so TV's can be mounted anywhere in (or out of) a house or garage and you can get whatever you want via the internet. That is the technological competition for OTA (along with cable, cellular and sat service)

Right now the Bulls offer the double whammy of a really bad product and a really bad distribution channel.

But a mobile phone is superior to a landline. My point was just that rooftop antennas are superior to indoor ones. OTA is also superior technology to IP streaming, but not a huge difference.

You can use something like HDHomerun to stream OTA signal (from rooftop or indoor antenna) to any wifi device too for a pretty minor cost, so that's not much of a differentiator either IMO.

No doubt the new arrangement sucks for a lot of people, but is great for a lot of other people. I'm fortunate to be among those that it is great for. For a lot of people, yes the antenna setup is inconvenient or even ineffective. For others, the cost of the streaming app is seen as a new extra fee, cause they still want their cable packages for unrelated content reasons. For someone like myself, I haven't had a TV package in almost a decade other than YoutubeTV off and on (and a few free trials of crap lile Fubu), but I hate that and was sick of $80/month paying for it, so I was done with it whether I could watch the Bulls or not. Fortunately the antenna works for me, but if it didn't, paying $20/month to stream the games is a wildly better option than $80/month for YouTube TV or similar.

[drosestruts]

I feel for those struggling with the OTA. It does seem like they could be doing something better - be it a better channel or more tower distribution or something (clearly not an OTA expert).

Guess I'm somewhat lucky to be living in Chicago. First antenna I bought has worked great with no issues all season.


There's also the larger issue - it seems like regional sports networks were a tip of the iceberg situation. I know YouTube tv just removed all paramount/viacom channels (MTV, comedy central, paramount, some others) over broadcast costs/disputes. So it's starting to become an issue for not just regional sports networks being carried or not by cable tv providers.

[dougthonus]

I might be wrong but I don't think signal strength or proximity of towers Will ever come particularly close to solving the problem of trying to get indoor reception. Even rooftop reception issues can never be solved by that. However, there is a reason that virtually every house in America used to have a rooftop antenna. It's vastly superior to indoor arrangement.

I don't know if it fully solves the problem, but it makes a massive difference. I get something like 100 channels OTA, and there is a very wide gap between how clear they are. All the major networks are awesome, perfectly clear. CHSN is on the likes of minor startups you never heard of. I haven't ever had a problem with CBS / NBC / ABC / FOX on my antenna, but CHSN is bad enough that I just switch to the questionably legal stream instead.

[panthermark]

I might be wrong but I don't think signal strength or proximity of towers Will ever come particularly close to solving the problem of trying to get indoor reception. Even rooftop reception issues can never be solved by that. However, there is a reason that virtually every house in America used to have a rooftop antenna. It's vastly superior to indoor arrangement.

Virtually every house in America used to have a landline for their phone. Times change.
A rooftop antenna may be superior, but if people are not willing to go through the hassle of installing such a contraption, it won't matter. Especially if a small, easy to blend-in or hide indoor antenna can pick up other OTA channels. Remember, modern smart TV's have built-in apps, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, so TV's can be mounted anywhere in (or out of) a house or garage and you can get whatever you want via the internet. That is the technological competition for OTA (along with cable, cellular and sat service)

Right now the Bulls offer the double whammy of a really bad product and a really bad distribution channel.

But a mobile phone is superior to a landline. My point was just that rooftop antennas are superior to indoor ones. OTA is also superior technology to IP streaming, but not a huge difference.

You can use something like HDHomerun to stream OTA signal (from rooftop or indoor antenna) to any wifi device too for a pretty minor cost, so that's not much of a differentiator either IMO.

No doubt the new arrangement sucks for a lot of people, but is great for a lot of other people. I'm fortunate to be among those that it is great for. For a lot of people, yes the antenna setup is inconvenient or even ineffective. For others, the cost of the streaming app is seen as a new extra fee, cause they still want their cable packages for unrelated content reasons. For someone like myself, I haven't had a TV package in almost a decade other than YoutubeTV off and on (and a few free trials of crap lile Fubu), but I hate that and was sick of $80/month paying for it, so I was done with it whether I could watch the Bulls or not. Fortunately the antenna works for me, but if it didn't, paying $20/month to stream the games is a wildly better option than $80/month for YouTube TV or similar.

Yes, cellular IS superior to landline. That was my point. Cellular isn't tied to anything location in a house. Landline is.

I'm not buying HDHomerun to attempt to connect it to multiple antennas that I've already purchased that still don't work.

What you are missing (and I think the point of this thread) is that viewership is way down. So a lot of people are not paying fees, nor jumping through OTA hoops to watch bad teams. If people can't easily pick up a signal, they are going to say "F it" and not watch (or watch through a means that does not benefit the channel). Poor choice by this network.

[boozapalooza]

The CHSN thing is so funny to me. When the Mavs went from an OTA + paid streaming version instead of an RSN, they were praised for offering it for free. When the Bulls do it, everyone whines “nobody can find/get” the channel, which is nonsense.

I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to pay for CHSN given the 3 teams available on it are terrible, but i’s a choice. And CHSN broadcasts from cities all across the Midwest for free, so for $20-40 for an antenna and 5 minutes of setup time, most (but not all) people in the Midwest can tune in for free.

I suspect viewership would be better if there were a product worth watching.

They might have to be a 60 win team for me to consider setting up a TV antenna in the year of our lord 2025