Engadget posted a compelling editorial by Brad Hill this week regarding the cord-cutting trend. Hill is VP for audience development at AOL and former director and GM of Weblogs, Inc.
Some 2.65 million cable subscribers decided to get rid of their service between 2008 and 2011, reports Hill. Since 1.5 million of those decisions were made in 2011 alone, it seems that the cord-cutting trend is accelerating.
There are a few “emergent consumer requirements” according to Hill. One is the ability to watch TV off the traditional scheduling grid. This of course means having recording capabilities. The second is a demand for à la carte programming purchases, or not having favorite cable channel shows lumped into a large package with other unwanted channels.
But cutting the cord isn’t without its problems. “This realm is infested with provider irregularities,” notes the post. “For example, Hulu is available on Roku, but not on Boxee. YouTube is widely distributed to media streaming boxes, but not to Roku. Multiple intermediaries create uneven match-ups between those four programmers and the main box builders (Roku, Boxee, Apple TV, Google TV).”
Hill compares this to what the music industry went through during the MP3 revolution, perhaps predicting the future of cable.
“The music industry’s lack of resilience during the MP3 revolution illustrated stress fracture points,” explains the post. “Record labels tried to enforce the single-path model — CD purchases, in that case. That wasn’t à la carte enough for the playlist generation, so albums were, to an extent, exploded by single track sales. Then music ownership was redefined by subscription plans (a little bit) and social music platforms (a lot).”
Hill suggests that inflated cable bills, resistance to tiered pricing and content bundling, and “coercive herding of users into one content delivery path, reinforced by the rumored cable authentication model” could push toward disruptive alternatives.
“The cable cord-cutting movement is not yet a rampage, but it is a trend, and it is growing,” he concludes.
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