Posts Tagged ‘Cord-cutting’

The topic of “cord-cutting” has been a high-profile media topic in recent years, focusing on whether multichannel video subscribers are dropping their service in order to view content over the web, go back to rabbit ears, or just stop watching altogether.  The evidence so far shows that cord cutting is more talk than reality but the growing amount of video content on the web will definitely continue to stoke this topic.

Maybe because it was drawing towards the close of August when the news seems to move more slowly, but last week was quite busy for stories questioning the very existence of the cable’s video service.  This is always a ripe topic for conversation but it’s worth taking a deeper look at some of last week’s stories to show that video is holding its own.

I’ve written a number of times about so-called “cord-cutting” services in part to counter the charge that such offerings are necessarily “cable killers.” But I also keep looking into this issue because I’m genuinely interested in how the home video business is continuing to develop.

There’s a really interesting discussion to be had about the future of delivering video to the home. Which technology makes the most sense? How will content companies make money in the future?

We are now in the midst of a shift of how we consume video. When I was a kid, it was three broadcast networks and a handful of local independents.

One of the highlights of the SXSWi conference in Austin was the session “Pay TV vs. Internet – The Battle For Your TV,” featuring a no-holds-barred debate between Mark Cuban, Chairman and President of the programming service HDNet, and Avner Ronen, CEO & co-founder of Boxee.

Regular readers will note that I keep returning back to the issue of cord-cutting, mostly because I keep reading articles and blog posts about how it’s the big new trend.

At the recent CES conference, there was much discussion of 3-D TV, mobile devices and tablet PCs. But there was also a great deal of talk about the future of television and about alternatives means of delivering entertainment and information to consumers.

One of the big stories in tech reporting over the past year or so has been the move by some consumers to “cut the cord” from their subscription TV service and begin relying on the Internet for the delivery of video content.  I catch up on a lot of shows myself by watching them online and this is definitely a convenient service.

Sean Fallon has a post up at Gizmodo titled “Life Without Cable or Satellite Is Easier Than You Think.” Fallon’s central argument is that all the shows you watch are available freely online, and you just need to connect a PC to your TV to get all the same content.

There are adults today who have never known a world without cell phones, color television or ATMs. These are people who have had cable television all of their lives (not to mention Internet access, DVRs, DVDs, and so on for a shorter period of time).