31.2 million
/31.2 million.
That is how many viewers have cut the cord on cable/satellite services.
While the pandemic lockdowns may have benefited certain forms of media, the traditional pay TV industry is not one of them.
EMarketer says that by 2024, more than one-third of US households will have cut the pay TV cord.
The cord cutting is accelerating as TV media groups continue to demand more money per-subscriber from cable/satellite companies.
That cost is passed along to the customer and as the bill rises, more and more people are deciding it is just not worth it.
FTVLive cut the cable cord years ago and last weekend we were staying at a place that had cable TV. I turned on the TV and started flipping through the scores of channels and after about 5 -10 minutes of doing so, I shut the TV off.
All those channels and I found nothing I was interested in watching.
It has been so long of watching streaming services of what I want to watch, when I want to watch and no commercials that made me realize, I don’t care one bit about watching cable TV.
And….looking at this chart, I see I’m not the only one.
I do watch news on apps like CBSN and others. But this shows you that TV media groups that continue to rely on the cable companies giving them money are headed the way of the newspaper.
Your station should be growing the digital space, sending viewers hard to the station’s website and looking for ways to get viewers the news in other places than through cable.
Reporters often whine about having to do “stories for the web” but guess what? The web is the future/present.
If you’re on TV, because you want “to be on TV” you’re a dinosaur.
Another problem is that the people that are running TV groups are for the most part just a bunch of old men. They know that regular TV is headed to extinction, but they also know that by the time that happens, they will be long gone from the industry.
Looking at today’s TV is like looking at climate change, most people know that it is happening, but they figure they will be dead and gone before it impacts them.
If you’re young in this industry, continue to embrace digital and know that by the time you are ready to retire from Journalism, this industry will look completely different.
Need an example? Ask your mom and dad about how they used to get the newspaper each and every day and it only cost them a couple of bucks for the entire week.
Like climate change, cord-cutting is real.
You’re boss might not be paying attention, but you should be.
