Cable's revenues derrived from advertising still comprise about 1/3 of the MSO's intake, a little north of $27B in 2010 (NCTA.com). But the growth of installations of headends slowed significantly last year as well, not because the internet had stolen it's wallet share but IMHO due to market saturation and customers dissatisfaction.
When mobile phones took over the rural US, there were still black phones in the kitchen - Ma Bell had strongholds that we'll never see again with the slow migration to mobile. No, we'll not find the artifacts of an old Scientific America set top box in the bedroom, or a DISH sitting atop the barn in 20 years. We shouldn't forget however, that these content providers became content enablers when Comcast, TimeWarner and the lot decided together, as they always do, to overbuild the PSTN's outdated and underpowered local infrastructures to bring us broadband.
I suspect that Brian Roberts and others have a card or two up their sleeves. There's only a small handful of companies granted that kind of access to our homes, and never underestimate the power of having a foot in our front doors. However, the Cable industry faces a significant challenge with the slow entry into the mobile content market. Additionally the MSO's consistently rank very poorly in customer satisfaction and customer experience surveys. And that's year in year out of screaming, yelling, aggrivated customers waiting impatienly for the cable guy to arrive sometime between 9 a.m. and next Yom Kippor. I remind you of the Comcast Cable Guy Sleeping video on You Tube: http://youtu.be/CvVp7b5gzqU
It's not very often that there's a direct correlation to infer between customer satisfaction and revenues so blatant and clear. The message: customers won't mind hunting and pecking for content in an unbundled, mobile sea online if the infrastructure and convenience of cable doesn't sit on top of a more customer centric foundation.
Apple TV anyone?
Inspired by a link from John Battelle's FM Blog <http://bit.ly/nhoOBD > His Monday Signal links and accompanying short commentary I find informative and funny. Subscribe to the RSS - worth it's place in your reader of choice.
Recent Comments