Despite the evidence in articles like these, TV execs can’t seem to make themselves take the impending threat to their livelihoods seriously. Some of us never learn. (And, ergo, deserve what they get?!)
Anyway:
by Karl Bode
One narrative that broadcast and cable industry execs use to comfort themselves late at night while sipping bourbon is that cord cutting is the realm of the foolish youngster, and that as these folks age they’ll suddenly see the wisdom in paying an arm and a leg for traditional cable. Nielsen, the TV ratings company that goes out of its way to tell the cable industry what it wants to hear, has been pushing this narrative hard lately; arguing that as the 18-to-34 demographic begins having children, the idea of giving Comcast $150 a month for huge bundles of awful channels is going to suddenly, somehow become appealing:
“We think behaviors could change once the so-called millennials start having families,” said Glenn B. Enoch, senior vice president for audience insights at Nielsen. New parents’ desire for better programming for their children will help drive them to cable, media executives have predicted.
Nielsen’s confidence appears based entirely on the fact that Millennials with kids are slightly more likely to subscribe to cable than their childless counterparts, for now:
About 80 percent of millennials with their own homes who have started families subscribe to cable, and an additional 14 percent get television with an antenna, according to Nielsen. Only 6 percent have just broadband connected to a television set. Among childless millennials who live in their own homes, about 75 percent subscribe to cable television, while 13 percent live in so-called broadband-only homes.
Of course, that doesn’t mean much. When it comes to the ratings hit being seen by traditional cable channels, children’s programming has led the charge, with parents being much happier with the flexibility of time-shifted viewing experiences like Netflix. Meanwhile, 2015 was really only the first year that skinny bundle streaming video services started to take off (Sling TV, Sony’s Playstation Vue), and the rise of affordable streaming options is only going to improve as broadcasters release their iron-like grip on licensing rights.
It’s also worth reminding readers that Nielsen is the same company that just a few years ago declared cord cutting to be “purely fiction,” only recently realizing that maybe it would be a good idea to start tracking these users’ viewing behaviors.
One major thing Nielsen’s ignoring? The rise of the “cord never,” or the customer who doesn’t have cable and has absolutely no interest in getting it….