The death of cable TV

Hello Netflix, Hulu, general streaming. Goodbye cable.

That is the premise of today’s article in the WSU by Kevin Sintumuang entitled  ”Cutting the Cord on Cable”

While Kevin may have beaten me to publish, this has been on my topic list for 2 months. Cable is gone. Let me share with you my proof.

As many of you know, I teach students at UBC in Vancouver, BC and WWU in Bellingham WA. Last semester a UBC student shared a terrific ad they had seen on a piped-in US show. We pulled it up on YouTube, and it ended up being a great shared learning moment.

The next day down at WWU I asked if anyone had seen the same ad. The students looked at me oddly. I explained further that I knew for a fact it had been on the West Coast feed two nights before. The students still looked at me oddly. Finally one student said “I think you’re confused about how we watch TV. We don’t watch it live.”

Well that’s a conversation stopper. So I asked the room how they watched “TV”. They Tivo’d, they Hulu’d, and the Netflixed. They didn’t “watch”. They knew what they wanted to see, and they watched it when it was convenient to them.

I asked further how many had cable. There were 10 of 40 who had cable, and in all of those cases it was that someone else in their living situation – parent, partner, friends – who insisted on the cable connection.

“Live” is viewed via smartphone. Everything else is accessed via “service of choice”.

For readers in Canada, where Hulu is blocked and cell plans are much more expensive, this snapshot of behavior is perhaps a bit premature. But for the United States, cable is gone. Much like long distance plans and land lines, there will be a long tail of residual income…but from a planning and marketing perspective, media planners would be well-served to put a fork in this longterm staple “meal” – its done! –  and move on to the future.

image credit http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/