Cable Television Is Dying A Swift Death

Cable television may not be dead yet — but, it’s clear the pallbearers are lining up and a lone trumpet player is rehearsing “Taps” in anticipation of the impending final moment.

Technology :
In case you haven’t noticed, cable television is dying and fast. The cable set-top box we’ve seen in homes for nearly 50 years is going the way of the home telephone and analog wall clock. Granted, technology has eliminated the need or desire for linear television, TV “channels,” scrolling through on-screen show guides to see what’s on right now, and for everyone (without a DVR) to watch the same TV program at the same time. However, the real reason behind the death of cable television is a bit more shocking: cable companies have been killing themselves!

Everyone who’s ever had a cable TV account is intimately aware of cable bundles. For example, cable companies have regularly offered a choice of Package A, Package B, or Package C. However, if the shows and channels someone wanted to see were not all in the same package, customers were forced to either subscribe to multiple packages or pay a hefty premium just to receive the channels they coveted.

Cable bundles eventually led to the “Cut The Cord” movement when customers began seeking their entertainment via alternate methods. Services such as Netflix and Hulu were born, and hackers began offering their own television “services” (such as KODI) by giving customers every channel they wanted for around $10 bucks.

Cable company executives went berserk because customers began cutting the cord at alarming rates (and lost cable companies millions in the process). So, how did Big Cable respond? They created more “packages” under the delusional belief that doing the same thing over and over again would eventually lure back their old cash cow customers.

Needless to say, that idea was about as solid as a VCR salesman believing that if he simply modified his marketing, video machines would make a miraculous comeback.

Spectrum and other cable companies began to bundle their beloved packages with streaming services. First came a massive deal with Disney that offered Spectrum customers free Disney+ and ESPN+. Next, Paramount announced similar deals to combine its cable packages with popular streaming services. For example, customers could receive Disney+ just by signing up for an old cable package.

During a recent Warner Bros. earnings call, its CEO spoke highly of the Disney Spectrum “deal” and how it was designed to effectively force every cable customer to pay for ESPN+ and Disney+.

However, the very thing cable executives thought would save cable television was the very thing that sped up its death.

The truth is, nobody loved cable packages. Ever! Additionally, the COVID pandemic convinced consumers that it was possible to watch their favorite shows when they wanted and not when the networks or cable companies wanted. Now, cable television as we know it — with its universal broadcast time for shows and its TV guide to find something interesting being broadcast now – is near death.

The way we all watch television has changed. Streaming is the wave of the future while cable bundles are as old as the Yellow Pages telephone book. Too bad cable television companies didn’t get the memo and were the last to know.

OK WASSUP! discusses Technology:
Cable television is all but dead.