… yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
Meantime, over the past two quarters, the number of U.S. households that subscribe to cable and other paid TV services fell for the first time since the dawn of cable – by about 335,000 households out of about 100 million, according to data provider SNL Kagan.
Time Warner Inc. said last month it expects its HBO pay-TV service to lose 1.5 million subscribers this year, though it blamed the decline on the poor economy and changes in promotions, not on consumers replacing cable subscriptions with Web video, a practice dubbed “cord-cutting.”
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I agree with Mike B too. My cable is massively overpriced as well. A la carte is the only way that I would pay for cable again. I watch CNBC, ESPN, A&E, Comedy Central and that is it. Most TV is just overblown celebrity news anyway. I promise you that the most savvy and independent minded young people will no longer pay for cable without thinking about it. When you look at the employment picture for my demographic and we start thinking about wants versus needs cable TV is one of the first things to be cut. This has been my experience in many different places throughout the country. The only thing keeping many of these people on the tube is football. ESPN 3 will fix that over the next few years.
A La Carte is here. Its called hulu. Or the internet. One price gets you the internet and much of the TV you enjoy. Sure it takes some work, but the reduction in commercials and the “watch anytime you want” options are worth it. You do miss out on cable channels, but most of the time you will find you aren’t missing anything but rather enjoying your time doing something else.
I’m a mid-20′s male, with a good job, my own house, and I don’t have cable TV. I don’t see myself getting it in the foreseeable future either. Give me Netflix and I’m golden. I don’t have a landline either.
The people like me aren’t replacing their older counter parts as they age and either pass away or can no longer afford cable in retirement. This trend will continue until they fix the broken system.
Interesting observation: Most business’s business model goes stale before anyone realizes it – profits don’t actually start to fall until after the stale date. And most will attribute the decline to some cause from their repertoire, not realizing the system that spawned the business itself has changed. Time Warner can’t make money on the web distribution model without becoming a web distribution company so it blames the decline in business on something else. Meanwhile the consumer doesn’t want HBO, they want to watch movies when they want to. Web distribution has even taken going to the mailbox out of the equation. But those in suits at the top of Time Warner, perceiving the environment distantly and distorted by all the layers of bureaucracy the signal has to pass through, still believe it’s the economy, not a change in their business environment.
If 50% of subscribers called their cable company(s) and stated that when their subscription runs out that they will not be renewing… you’d see some revamping on the part of the company(s).
And if in fact the subscribers didn’t renew… you’d see more than revamping. You’d see the company(s) scrambling… and not scrambling their signals.
Wouldn’t that be satisfying?
I’m canceling my cable this month. My house mate was paying for it and he is moving out. I already bought an antenna and I’ve discovered I can record my shows in Hi-def using Windows Media Center. I’m even switching my Internet to DSL.
@Mike B: “Someone needs to do for pay TV what iTunes did for music.”
It’s called “iTunes.” You can buy most shows on there a la carte or subscribe to seasons. Etc. Or through Zune. Or watch for free on Hulu (pay for access to past episodes).
It all depends on how much you are willing to pay. I just got The Walking Dead through Zune and it came out to about $10/month for that one show. Now, between that and Hulu, that’s all I needed and was cheaper than paying for cable. If I were to do that for 3 or 4 shows, it starts coming close to the price I’d pay for cable service, at which point cable may be worth it for the convenience (not having to hook my laptop up for Hulu and not having to run my Xbox for Zune).
I agree with Tim…Netflix’s streaming content (via AppleTV) is wonderful.