Why The Cable Networks Must Adapt To The Cord Cutters Or Die Off Completely

By Nathan Young on August 19, 2015

Cord cutters rejoice! The stocks for media content providers like Viacom, Discovery, and Comcast are going way down. Some say the stocks are being hit because of lower ad revenue. But that is only a small part of the story. There is a much bigger story, the amount of people who are cutting the cord and streaming everything via the internet. The number of cord cutters is growing, and after what I saw over the weekend. I would not be shocked to see the cord cutting rate continuing to grow.

Over the weekend I went to my mom’s house, and they don’t have high-speed internet, and have to rely on satellite TV for now. My God all of the commercials! I was using the DVR to skip over the 4-5 minutes of commercials. And try watching a movie on cable TV, and try to sit through the insane amount of ads! You can now see why more people are quitting cable and going internet only. And because more people are ending cable subscriptions, the cable channels are about to pump up the ads!

According to the NY Post, ratings for cable TV programs are falling fast! And the amount of people tuning into cable TV continues to fall. The problem with this is the ad sales departments in each cable network guaranteed advertisers a certain amount of ratings when they sell air time for the ads. And with the ratings not matching the sales the advertisers paid for, some cable networks might have to give money back to the advertisers!

Cable TV networks would air advertiser’s commercials in something called “make-goods” when some shows underperformed. But even the popular shows are underperforming. And there is only so much commercial time. So, either the networks will give money back, roll over “make-goods”, or add in even more commercial time. Viacom is already doing this with their time shift programming. Where they make a 30 minute show 37 minutes long, with seven minutes of extra commercials!

In a three-month period from April to June, nearly 600,000 more consumers cut the cord. That’s over 6,000 consumers a day! Maybe it’s time for the networks to begin to end lesser-known cable channels to save money? Or maybe it’s time to make programs that are not junk and is worth watching? Or here is a better idea, do what Canada is about to do! The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is forcing the cable companies to begin a “pick-and-pay” by the end of 2016. For folks up in Canada, they will soon be able to pick and choose which channels they want to watch.

And for us in the states, we are forced to pay an insane amount for cable when most of us only watches about 5 to 10 channels. It’s time for the cable companies to change, and allow us to pay for the channels we want to watch. If not, well good-bye to the cable industry, because it won’t be long before the cable networks can’t afford to be on the air because the ad revenue will be so low! I don’t think many will miss the end of cable TV. They are too busy enjoying commercial free shows on Netflix.