Cable TV
-
Will “Unbundling” Kill Cable?
Digital disruption is restructuring the media industries. New production, distribution and display technologies shook up publishing (including newspapers, books and magazines), records and home video/DVDs. The cable industry’s day of reckoning may be at hand. A series of disquieting developments in the cable industry have been accumulating. Over the last decade, basic subscribers have declined by nearly 16 percent, to 56.4 million in 2012 from 66.9 million in 2001. Consumer viewing habits are changing, with many either abandoning or supplementing their fixed TV set with new devices and multi-screen viewing. More and more households are turning to the Internet for […]
by David Rosen on Jul 18, 2013 -
Encrypting Basic TV
On October 12, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously approved a measure to allow the major cable companies to encrypt basic tier programming. Basic tier consists of traditional “over-the-air” broadcast channels. Previously, the leading Multi-System Operators (MSOs) were permitted to only encrypt programming offered as part of more expensive packages. The major MSOs have long argued that providing non-encrypted basic tier service was inefficient, expensive and opened them to theft-of-signal piracy. They complained that the restriction imposed unfair competition on them because alternative TV services providers like satellite and telcos (e.g. Dish and AT&T) were exempt from the regulation. The […]
by David Rosen on Oct 24, 2012 -
WHAT’S HAPPENING, MR. JONES?
In Bob Dylan’s 1965 song “Ballad of a Thin Man,” he famously observes: “Something is happening here/But you don’t know what it is/Do you, Mr. Jones?” Well, something is sure happening to the U.S. movie entertainment business and nobody seems to know what it is. Most disturbing, the MPAA reports box office ticket sales have been declining for the last decade and a leading market research firm, Digital Entertainment Group, reported DVD sales continue to shrink. Making matters more trying, there has been no comparable increase in web streaming revenues to make up the difference. Adding to this bleak picture, […]
by David Rosen on Aug 14, 2012 -
CABLE WOES
Some 70 years ago, the economist Joseph Schumpeter introduced the notion of “creative destruction” to explain the role of technological innovation in capitalism. Over the last decade, digital disruption has wrought havoc on the publishing industry (i.e., magazines, newspapers and books) as well as records and broadcast TV. Now, it is upsetting the cable TV apple cart. A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that the audience for 11 of the top 15 most-watched cable channels, including Nickelodeon, TNT and FX, is falling. Reuters reported that a Citigroup analyst, Jason Bazinet, found: “Beginning late last year we began to notice […]
by David Rosen on Apr 24, 2012
