Remember the days when you and your family would sit down on the couch with bowls of popcorn, turn on the "boob tube" and settle in for an evening of mind-numbing television? Remember having to adjust the antenna to get the best reception? Or hoping that there was something good on the 3 or 4 channels (hey, PBS was a thing) you had?

Well, despite our fondness for all things traditional, today's media landscape has changed and with it the way we consume television and media. More and more people are moving away from the way they used to watch TV and are "cutting the cord." Which, for those of you who don't know, means watching TV via a streaming service such as Netflix, or Huly, or Sling TV.

According to Variety, by the end of last year 22 million people will have ditched cable and satellite TV for streaming, "up 33% from 16.7 million in 2016." The website TechCrunch agrees: "cord cutting is accelerating at a pace faster than previously estimated."

In addition, TechCrunch points to something that I didn't even know was a thing: cord-nevers. These are the people who have never (and will never) subscribed to cable or satellite TV. They estimate there are over 34 million of those in America. And when you combine those two together, "there will be 56.6 million U.S. non-pay TV viewers this year," said TechCrunch," said Sarah Perez of TechCrucnh.

That means almost half (44%) of adults in America have cut the cord, or didn't get it in the first place. And apparently, as traditional as Sioux Falls and South Dakota may think it is, we're no different than the rest of the country.

We conducted an unscientific poll and asked people how many of them use streaming media vs. broadcast/cable (didn't think to ask if they had never set up the cord in the first place, but again, didn't know that was a thing) and a whopping 75% said they streamed their media.

Now, this poll was conducted online and was a fairly small sample, which probably swayed the results a bit, but it does show where the state is going. Our stations that skewed older tended to lean more towards broadcast and cable, but our younger-skewing stations went streaming by even bigger margin.

Personally, I'm in the middle. I still have cable (which I pay WAYYYY too much for - thanks MidCo), but I also have an Amazon Fire TV Stick and catch my self using that more and more. Maybe I need to think about getting out the scissors. Are you listening MidCo?


See Also:


More From Hot 104.7 - KKLS-FM