DirecTv dealt another blow against cord cutting in the US with another quarter of subscriber growth. At 12,000 net additions, the number may not be large but it certainly indicates that households still want their cable television. Consumers not happy with their cable service may be just as willing to shift from cord to satellite as long as they can continue to get their TV programming.
Also part of the discussion continues to be whether AT&T will make a serious bid for DirecTv or perhaps Dish Network to enhance and grow its cable platform. A combined AT&T DirecTv venture would reach 26 mm households, almost as large as a post Comcast Time Warner Cable merger. With John Malone's interests in DirecTv and Charter, this becomes a very interesting scenario to watch.
Pay TV providers are not getting hit much by cord cutters either because consumers found they had to use too many sources to get the content they want according to a recent study by Park Associates. However, since Netflix has proven that there is a demand for streaming video we can expect this market to evolve and to seriously threaten traditional cable and satellite services.
ReplyDeleteTwo big reasons people keep cable or satellite services are news and sports. Sports is difficult because the content is closely protected by organizations like the NFL. But news is another story. There are lots of good video news clips but the challenge is finding an efficient way to consume them. Nobody wants to have to go to several different sites, search for the clips and then click on each one to play it. That would take far too long to be practical.
I have found an interesting solution for online news clips. Its an app called MondoPlayer that is currently in beta. It is like a newsfeed except for video. It goes to lots of news sites and collects news clips into continuous streams. You just choose the stream you want and it plays all the latest news clips from a variety of sites one after another. As you are watching it adds the latest clips as they become available. To see how it works you can go to http://www.mondotag.com/stream/News_junkies2
As technologies are invented to make it easier to consume internet video and to help us discover hidden content, we can expect our viewing habits to change. This will impact cable and satellite providers but how much and how soon is to be determined