Although it’s more of a murmur than a rumble, there appears to be growing attention on cord-cutting. I’m not talking about wood as those of us north of border prepare for another long, cold winter but people who have decided they no longer need cable or satellite service because most, if not all, of their video needs are being met by online services.
Fabrice Taylor had an interesting column in yesterday’s Globe & Mail that talked about his own decision to cut the chord, as well as the fact the number of U.S. cable and satellite subscribers dropped by 216,000 in the second-quarter, the first time it had ever declined.
In the scheme of things 216,000 is a drop in the bucket compared with the 10s of millions of subscribers still coughing up a growing amount of dollars each and every month. But it does signal that consumers now have an option to get their video fix – be it movies, documentaries or television shows. With higher-speed networks and a growing number of devices to watch video, the Web is becoming a more viable and attractive platform.
This is a movement that will likely gain more traction as services such as Hulu, NetFlix and iTunes make it even easier to access online video anywhere, any time on any device, including smartphones.
The big obstacle facing cord-cutting is live sports – something that is available on pay-per-view but not readily available through an online service. If the professional sports leagues come around to offering games on a pay-as-you-go basis, it could dramatically jump-start the cord-cutting trend.
Last weekend, for example, I watched an NFL football game via online service. It wasn’t a legitimate service but, nevertheless, hinted at what was possible. If I could purchase the game of the week (e.g. New England vs. the New York Jets) for let’s say $4.99 from NFL.com, that would completely change how I would consume television.
That said, I do not expect the professional sports leagues in North America to change how they do business in the near future. The television deals from ESPN, NBC, Fox and CBS are too lucrative to consideration alternatives. We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars.
So while professional sports may not be part of the cord-cutting movement, everything else is on the table. As more services become available and more people get their heads around the fact they really don’t need to have cable or satellite service, cord-cutting could go from a murmur to a rumble in no time at all.
Have you cut the cord? If so, how do you consume your video these days, and what services do you use?
