tinyurl.com/bquxsj
There’s been a lot of press about "cord cutters" over the past few months. Apparently a lot of people who are friends of reporters have stopped subscribing to multichannel TV services in favor of online video – "Caitlin/Cody, 28, a graphics designer/professional tweeter living in SOHO/SOMA/WEHO says she/he has given up her/his cable/satellite/IPTV service. I do all my TV show watching online." On the other hand, we see metrics on watching TV in the old-fashioned ways actually on the increase. The recent Nielsen Three Screen report says Q4 08 TV viewing time spent was up 3.6% vs. a year ago. Multi-channel TV subscriber levels at the major operators increased in Q4 by 335,000 (based on Berstein Research analyst Craig Moffett’s numbers reported by Daisy Whitney in TV Week, I’ve added DISH and Cablevision’s later reports – note that the increase was driven by DIRECTV and the telcos, DISH and the major MSOs saw losses).
My tendency is to agree with Moffett when he told TV Week that cord cutting “remains the province of urban myth.” At least right now. But, driven by advances in technology plus market demand from consumers, networks and advertisers, cord cutting or some other form of broadband delivered "over the top" looms large (it’s not here yet, but we can see it on the horizon).
To me, this begs the question… today, if you "cut the cord," how much TV can you still see?
Continue reading “Indexing Cord Cut-ability – How Much TV Do You Lose Going Online-Only?”
