Comments on: Europeans Cutting the Cord; Will Americans Follow?

By: David Coakley

David Coakley — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:40:57 +0000

Yes, the trend to cut the cable cord will accelerate. An example of some anecdotal evidence is from my own experience.

We cut our landline phone service giving up a # we had for over 20 years. Anyone that needs to find us can find us via Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…. More recently we cut off our DirecTV service and bought a digital antenna. We get most all of our favorite shows including football so we think it’s well worth the $80/month in savings.

I work for Retro TV, which broadcasts classic TV shows via free over-the-air in over 100 markets already. We also launched TUFF TV, which serves up shows for the young crowd. Over the next few years we’ll be adding numerous other new channels providing the expanding free over-the-air crowd some quality content to watch totally free.

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By: Fred ter Haar

Fred ter Haar — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 17:13:19 +0000

I suspect that this may be not just be a case of cord cutting, but also Cable losing market share to new competition such as IPTV and new digital broadbast providers.

Unlike in the US, digital broadbast is not necessarily a free service. In the Netherlands for instance, KPN operates Digitenne (http://www.digitenne.nl/) which offers cheap basic packages using over the air digital broadcasting.

By: David H. Deans

David H. Deans — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:34:48 +0000

@maximus, a point of clarification, “TV Everywhere” is an attempt by legacy MSOs to restrict access to channels — not programming. As an example, selective Showtime, Starz and now NBC network content libraries are already available via Netflix — other content sources are sure to follow.

Moreover, it’s the under-reported pay-TV service downgrading (dropping premium channels like HBO) trend that is making it very difficult to attract more subscribers to the TV Everywhere offerings.

My point: the value proposition assumed continued exclusivity for MSOs — which clearly is not the current trend, given the increasing OTT distribution of much of the same content.

By: Ryan Lawler

Ryan Lawler — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:43:15 +0000

Sorry, but have to disagree with you. Cutting the cord generally just refers to no longer paying a cable provider. Why should we limit it to people getting content over-the-top when there’s plenty of free OTA content available as well?

By: MarkP

MarkP — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:54:38 +0000

Come on “cutting the cord” generally means moving from a traditional tv platform, including satellite, cable, terrestrial, to a web tv offering. The fact that Europeans are dumping cable to take up digital terrestrial I wouldn’t class as cable cutting in the sense that it’s meant in the US

By: maximus

maximus — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:35:52 +0000

The quality and quantity of European cable system infrastructure generally lags behind those in the US. Many have not even been upgraded to digital. In many parts of Europe including areas in Benelux, there is a very limited programming selection due to distribution capacity and broadcast plus Internet-distributed video is a more viable competitor. Cable programming is just not as plentiful or as popular in Europe. Another factor suppressing programming supply is language fragmentation.

In the US, watch for either increased distribution of current “cable” programming via Internet or emergence of comparable new programming sources developed for Internet delivery.

So long as the cable operators–through their contracts with programmers–lock up “cable” programming and restrict Internet delivery to “TV Everywhere”, cord cutting will grow less quickly in the US than in Western Europe.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:36:46 +0000

Would be interesting to see historically how European TV consumers paying habits compare to US viewers.
Is Euro a predictor? Any correlation between the two?

By: Vanessa Vigar

Vanessa Vigar — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:58:16 +0000

The debate of Over The Top (OTT) being friend of foe to operators continues. Monaco Telecom has embraced it and launched a Hybrid TV service earlier this year that blends broadcast and broadband content into one service. They are making OTT services work to their advantage by aggregating broadband content and delivering them as branded channels in their TV line up, its driving APRU and reducing churn. Telcos are also harnessing the power of OTT. Slovenia Telekon has also launched a ‘blended’ service using OTT to create a host of new TV channels including branded FaceBook and sports highlight channels. Telstra is doing something similar in Australia, establishing its TV play by bringing its PC BigPond brand OTT to the TV via their T-Box. They are creating some interesting business models too in a market which is used to metered services. The challenge, or at least one of them, now for operators is to get to market quickly and offer these new, hybrid TV service before pure play OTT providers and before customers cut the cord once and for all.