The television business has changed from provider-driven to consumer-driven. For broadcasters and operators – who used to decide whether content lived or died — the internet has proven to be a most disruptive development, looming menacingly over their profit stream. The internet is changing the TV business forever.
These changes affect the definition of TV itself; what do we really mean by television? It used to refer to a cabinet-like device, with scheduled programming on a small number of broadcast channels. It became cable, satellite and internet television (IPTV) with hundreds of channels. Today, viewers can watch football, drama, news and the latest cat video at will, sometimes simultaneously with their tablet or smartphones.
Viewers are in control, creating personal playlists while digital recorders, applications and TV web sites accommodate binge-watching. Commentary moves immediately to social media, not to a weekly TV Guide or the daily newspaper. YouTube and commercial content intermingle. This has been happening for years, but the TV industry is only starting to respond to its challenges.
Operators used to perceive “cord cutters,” those who cancelled TV subscriptions, as merely a glitch resulting from the 2008 recession. However, they have been replaced by the “cord-nevers” who will not buy any television packages. A whole generation is being raised on a steady diet of Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. Live television over the air (OTA) has become a niche for reality TV, sports, reruns and newscasts. The reasons to maintain a cable subscription are to watch specialised sports or high-quality subscription-based channels. But many cable connection fees include access to applications that allow those channels to be consumed over the top (OTT) in a “cord-cutting” model. This is the new way of watching TV.