Cable Television Is Crumbling. It’s Great News for Google’s YouTube TV.

[Steve Timko]

Here is something from Barrons.com that might interest you:

Cable Television Is Crumbling. It’s Great News for Google’s YouTube TV.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/google-youtubetv-might-be-your-next-cable-provider-51563891177

[Tom Wolper]

I expect DirecTV's days are numbered as AT&T decides to move away from the problems of satellite dishes and towards streaming.

[Bob Jersey]

The quaint part of this, at least where I am, is that what for years have been known as "cable" companies have all evolved into also being at-least-serviceable ISPs, and even smaller firms have intro'ed super-duper "boxes" that are adaptable to whatever Net-centered type of delivery is on the horizon.

B

[Kevin M.]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 7:03 AM 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

The quaint part of this, at least where I am, is that what for years have been known as "cable" companies have all evolved into also being at-least-serviceable ISPs, and even smaller firms have intro'ed super-duper "boxes" that are adaptable to whatever Net-centered type of delivery is on the horizon.

The ironic part is the cable companies could have maintained a stranglehold on content distribution if they had just offered a-la-carte options. Even a cursory glance at all the streaming services now being offered demonstrates people are willing to pay more to support specific content instead of being forced to subsidize networks they dislike.

B

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[PGage]

This is an interesting question, but not sure your answer is correct. Unlike cable, streaming doesn’t have channels, but consumers are still asked to pay for a lot of content they will never use. For example I signed up for D+ yesterday (free for 1st year, but likely will continue) because my adult kids want access to Marvel and Star Wars content, not all the children’s programming. I can imagine a world in a few years where consumers are bitching about this, and demanding “a la carte” options to only pay for programming that appeals to them.

Also, if cable systems begin to go down, how will consumers feel about losing access to specialty channels altogether that are no longer sustainable, or having to pay high charges for direct access to ESPN or Nickelodeon?

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[Tom Wolper]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 1:39 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

This is an interesting question, but not sure your answer is correct. Unlike cable, streaming doesn’t have channels, but consumers are still asked to pay for a lot of content they will never use. For example I signed up for D+ yesterday (free for 1st year, but likely will continue) because my adult kids want access to Marvel and Star Wars content, not all the children’s programming. I can imagine a world in a few years where consumers are bitching about this, and demanding “a la carte” options to only pay for programming that appeals to them.

Also, if cable systems begin to go down, how will consumers feel about losing access to specialty channels altogether that are no longer sustainable, or having to pay high charges for direct access to ESPN or Nickelodeon?

Back when this list was young we used to have discussions about a la carte cable quite often. One poster, who is no longer in the group, made the case that in order to implement a la carte a cable company would have to change its accounting from account name and tier to account name and a string of all the channels with yes/no flags attached to each. Then they would have to make a system for the consumer to change which channels they want and figure out how to bill for changes between billing periods. Not only could they not raise rates to pay for designing and implementing such a system, the result would be lower monthly income. The choice not to even think about a system like that made sense - the PR people from the cable companies might have blathered that the tier system was there because that's what people want, but there wasn't enough pressure to change and they didn't.

As internet speeds increased and TVs became smart TVs streaming looks to be the future. I don't know what percentage of US homes are accessible to cable and not to broadband internet and that might be enough to keep cable viable even as people with broadband cancel their cable subscriptions. Streaming is not channel dependent and outside of live events can be all on demand. The transition of the business model from networks and cable companies to a subscription model will be hard and the companies that will end up losing income will fight it in every way they know how but streaming on demand programs will be the future.