This article from Business Insider provides a clear and fact-based analysis of the upheaval in the TV/cable industry as more and more Americans cut the cord and instead get their video fix via broadband, through services such as Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, Aereo, ABC.com, et al. This massive change in media consumption patterns is the bi-product of new generational trends, broadband, economics and, of course, the declining quality of network television programming. (As the great poet Springsteen sang, "57 channels and nothin' on.")
Here are Business Insider's major conclusions:
Here are Business Insider's major conclusions:
- People are unplugging.
- Cable TV ratings are sinking.
- Fewer people are watching TV.
- Ratings for some major TV events are in decline.
- For the first time ever, the number of cable TV subscribers at major providers is about to dip below 40 million.
- Cable and broadband companies are increasingly unable to retain customers.
- For the first time ever, less than half of subscribers at major broadband companies now subscribe to cable TV.
- Fewer households actually have TV.
- Few households have TV because they are watching video on mobile devices instead.
- Mobile video is booming.
- Tablets are stealing prime time, the period we used to devote to TV.
- Ad dollars are following eyeballs, shifting from TV to digital media of all kinds.
- Ad revenue increases are masking the macro decline in TV.
- People who are unplugging from both Cable TV and broadband internet are likely going to free wifi.