Cable / Broadcasters Holding Their Breath

Just like toddlers who threaten to hold their breath until they get what they want, the cable operators and broadcast station owners seem to be doing the same thing.  Almost every week brings another example of these legacy services trying to hold back the advance of technology and the desires of their audiences.  Also, almost every week there are industry developments that bode ill for the status quo.   Until they see the error of their ways it looks like we as consumers are in for frustration.

Case in point.  You might remember I wrote extensively earlier in the year about a new company called Aereo.  The company provided local TV stations to subscribers wishing to watch these stations on a computer, smartphone or tablet.   I was an early subscriber and it was great to be able have that flexibility. I could take my iPad out on the deck and watch my favorite program.  The cable and broadcasting community thought otherwise and eventually sought an opinion of the US Supreme Court to put Aereo out of business.  Aereo lost the case, ceased operation, and just last week announced they would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

So now you and I are left with Time Warner’s wimpy app that allows only some of the channels we pay for each month to be viewed on an iPad, computer or smartphone.  Of course, not all the cable channels are available and none of the local broadcast stations.  Viewing the latter requires me to use my TV set.  If I leave the confines of my house the number of channels available on my iPad decreases even further.  Right now the BBC and Aljazeera America are about the best of those offerings. Standing on the sidelines and watching these old media companies try to figure out how to hold on to their grip on TV entertainment is both comical and frustrating. 

Even companies that advise broadcasters are struggling in this new environment. Nielsen, the leading TV audience measurement service, continues to refine their survey process at a time when measuring an audience for a single program episode is no longer just a matter of counting people watching at one specific time.  Time shifting, first with the help of VCRs and more recently with slick new digital options and online streaming, has made the audience reports suspect at best.  Even large sophisticated media savvy companies like P&G have questioned Nielsen’s numbers.

We consumers are in for more frustration as slowly but surely the keepers of all things TV, the cable operators and broadcasters, move into the 21 century and abandon business models developed in the 1950s when we had three or four TV channels.