What's Happening to the Industry Formerly Known as Cable TV?

CableTec Expo wasn39t the only show to make news The Women in Cable Telecommunications WICT Leadership Conference and the National Association for Multiethnicity in Communications NAMIC Annual Conference were held virtually Theamp160Walter Kaitz Foundation chose to forego itsamp160annual fundraising dinner celebration Virtual proved to be a positive as WICT set a record of more than 860 industry professionals registered whileamp160NAMIC had a 40 jump in attendees over last yearThe operators technicians and suppliers were all scattered but built around a virtual center online And the industry took credit for answering the interesting fallout ofamp160the COVID19 nightmare that has kept us all sort of at home It39s put a lot of stress upon the internet39s infrastructure amp8230 with little serious fallout It wasn39t easy handling customer calls issues complaints installation infrastructure expansion upkeep and repair under stayathome rules Talk about essential workersBut that wasn39t all amp8230 here are some of the other things happening questions that need to be answered amp8230 and more amp8230The convention exhibit and panels were moved online driven by COVID19 and the industry39s responses Graded it merits a B I39d say Pretty good But not so much rurally where the infrastructure like at my semirural house hasn39t been fully upgradedThere are real upgrades on the way amp8230 like hitting true G5 levels on the way to a targeted 10G amp8230 which is already real in a Mediacom system a Charter test with holograms take that Star Trek and a Comcast trial 10G boasts more speed more capacity and the sun moon and stars amp8230 when DOCSIS 40 the secrets from CableLabs that makeamp160the internet actually work gets fully specked amp8230 and deployed amp8230 and connected to a customerSo what Right now every single step is in flux andamp160changes are on the wayThe more broadly discussed industry creates content sells or licenses it to someone who puts it on a screen via some kind of distributor who digitizes it and distributes it over the air by broadcast or cellular or fixed wireless or wirefiber cable telco and ummm a short note that DSL once did that too amp8212 to any screen TV computer pad phone billboard panel stovetop refrigerator laptop watch more to come Someone pays or not watches or uses it amp8212 and someone gets paid Or notJust look at what39s happened latelyThe programming shift that39s growing streaming isamp160naturally impacting linear TV amp8230 no matter whether linear cable or linear broadcasting In short the old wholesale model involving long lists of channels and channel bundles is on its way out no matter how slowly Retail is the new name of the game as it39s just another case of the internet upending a business model and in turn recreating the media ecosystemsThis of course explains why Jeff Bewkes took the money and ran The quotnewquot ATampampT media ecosystem lost over 625K linear distributed subs while adding only 158K subs for HBO Max in Q3 The middlemen got cut out The question is can retail deliver a bigger profit Maybe because the cloud might make better sense than the plethora of channels that need to be programmed in the universe of too many cable channels amp8230 many of which were added as an excuse to raise rates But for cable that only meant too much bandwidth used that wasn39t watched and too many grumbling former subscribersIn others a la carte is happening amp8230 and probably going to be universal no matter the source It will happen with current programmersdistributors in all forms of transmission ie cable pipes oneway overtheair broadcasting twoway overtheair 4G fixed wireless and up or DVDs for just a little while longer It won39t rule today or the next couple of years amp8230 but the next generation of media distribution and consumption will be twoway streamingCable is not what39s declining The linear model is what39s disappearing Corporations like ComcastPeacock Charter ATampampTHBOTurner ViacomCBS which should change its name to Paramountamp160and Disney will survive amp8230 as will the smaller providers of internet connectivity And welcome the new disruptors at Netflix Amazon Alphabet39s YouTube and Apple amp8230 and so far some 300 others Odds are about 2030 of those might survive a decade or soIn other words streaming wins the long game amp8230 if it can figure out something beyond the inevitable sharing of passwords What we now know as networks will slowly disappear to be replaced by a half dozen repositories of oncepowerful names into a collection of programming choices New and repositioned brands will proliferate amp8230 and finance the creators of new programming And here welcome the new settop boxes of Tivo Roku Fire TV and too many others to mention Of note is Amazon amp8230 playing the new STB game as well as programmingSomeone also has figure out how to serve localities as well as national programmers Broadcasting will have to find a place in the mix And they are experimenting amp8230 the ATSC 30 addition is interesting as it adds cell phones to the mix For example Sinclair39s ONE Media smartphone that gets NextGen TV signals via an embedded chip for overtheair TV accessamp160It39ll all be without retransmission consent though Maybe broadcasters should sell quottheir spectrumquot and just use the internet tooThe other winners are already solidly in place amp8230 the cable system operators They will absorb and integrate the twoway overtheair players cellular and fixed wireless during this next decadeAnd that39s the new collective media ecosystem Digital media which is what cable is becoming amp8230 along with other parts of the digital media ecosystemRandom Notesamp160In a previous columnamp160I mentioned how Mr Holanda and RCNWaveGrande now plus EnTouch Systemsamp160owned by TPG and managed by Patriot Media Consulting made some things happen Some really polite cool workers came and gave us a temporary fix for an infrastructure issue Unfortunately we39re now sliding back to intermittent interruptions and frustrating calls But we39ve now got markings on our driveway and yard for a new buried cable In short we39ve got our fingers crossedClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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What's Happening to the Industry Formerly Known as Cable TV?

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Paul S. Maxwell

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