The Changing TV Landscape

TV as we have known it is changing. There’s a significant shift in how television is delivered and in twelve months the TV landscape will be radically altered.

TV Watching Oldie

Once upon a time there was an over-the-air feed from broadcast TV stations to your television, often only a few in a market.  That was it. And we were grateful! So grateful that we structured our lives around popular shows, and we watched as families and the stars and storylines became part of our identities. The television set was prominent, and for many it still occupies the center stage of a living room. Of course, now we have multiple sets scattered throughout the house. And TV is so prolific there are TVs at the office, bank, airport, doctor’s office, auto mechanic garage, gas pumps (how annoying) and the restaurant. Long live video.

The rise of cable TV back in the 1970s marked a change in both delivery methodology, content and cost. The cable explosion continued almost unabated until just recently, becoming the primary way Americans get their TV shows. It became a source of reliable and significant revenues for many companies in the industry. The wired home became the norm and the viewing offerings grew from three network options to hundreds of channels.

Years ago there were jokes when the first golf channel launched…who could possibly want to watch that much golf? How boring! The reception proved positive, however long it took for a real audience and profitability to develop. Now one can get bored from simply clicking through the incredibly expansive number of cable channels and sub-channels. Last count the average home had access to 189 channels…but only 17 were watched regularly.

Cable TV Channels

Growing programming brought increasingly sizable cable company bills. According to International Business Times, for at least the past two decades, the report shows, the average monthly cable bill has risen about $2 to $3 per year. The average household now pays about $64.41 per month, nearly triple what they paid in 1995.

Then…the internet, faster computers, faster wifi and better smartphones became a cable alternative. Netflix has become an (almost) overnight success. It is how we watch movies and television now.

So we’ve moved from a single TV with a few channels and time-limited watching to portable video on multiple devices. What you want, when you want, where you want.

Very soon delivery of television content will shift again as HBO, Sling and soon Apple offer cable-like bundles of TV shows for on-demand viewing at a lower cost than traditional cable subscription plans. The competition is about to get fierce as Apple goes for a critical mass in such a service, much as Netflix has achieved in on-demand movie and binge TV viewing. Add up the costs of a few separate on-demand bundles and your monthly bill might not be much less than it is now.

What does all this mean? There will inevitably be some hits and misses in the industry. Things will feel a bit like the wild west for a while, then settle into a manner of commodity normalcy. Until then, expect some winners, and some losers.

Not so long ago, Netflix was on the ropes, a result of massive subscriber defections due to a bad business model decision. 800,000 people said goodbye, and Wall Street figured the company was done. However, in the last quarter of 2014 Netflix added over 4 million customers, now with over 60 million subscribers (or more, who knows how many individuals share their account, and with how many people?). What was a miss became a risk and then a wild success, changing the online video industry forever. HBO’s new service may do the same (I’m guessing it won’t), and Apple’s forthcoming “TV” may prove to be the usual Apple gold (maybe, maybe not).

Bandwidth issues will remain a question mark, with government regulation a big unknown, but you’ll put up with occasional pauses and wince but keep watching. Your TV bills will likely rise, and you’ll wait until a pain point or better option presses you into action. Viewing video on your “smart watch” will probably become a preferred method of consumption. And your video intake will continue to increase, like it or not.