{"id":322390,"date":"2010-02-15T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T18:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=98638"},"modified":"2010-02-15T13:00:13","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T18:00:13","slug":"cable-is-saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/322390","title":{"rendered":"Cable Is Saved?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a>When you\u2019re drowning, you grasp at straws to try to stay afloat.\u00a0 Sometimes you actually convince yourself that you\u2019re standing on dry land.\u00a0 That seems to be the collective response of the traditional TV industry to a recent survey from Parks Associates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The market research firm company found that only 8 percent of U.S. households are thinking of abandoning their paid multichannel services.\u00a0 Why is that good news?\u00a0 Well it\u2019s down from the previous year\u2019s survey, which showed that 11 percent were considering \u201ccutting the cord.\u201d\u00a0 Even better, according to Parks, only a very small amount, perhaps a half percent -\u2013 which\u00a0translates into 350,000 homes — have actually followed through on their intent.\u00a0You could practically hear the sigh of relief — cable is saved!<\/p>\n

I have three problems with this giddy response:\u00a0math, measurement and morbidity. Let\u2019s get the math out of the way first. Parks surveyed 2,100 of what it calls \u201cbroadband households\u201d -\u2013 those with access to high-speed networking at home -\u2013 to come up with its results.\u00a0Modern statistical theory holds that a random group of that size can comfortably be extrapolated across an entire population, albeit with one caveat:\u00a0Depending on the population surveyed, there\u2019s what is known as a \u201cconfidence interval,\u201d or what you and I would call a \u201cfudge factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such padding extends up and down on either side of the actual number.\u00a0In this case, the confidence interval is 2 percent, which translates into a 4 percent swing centered around the 8 percent number reported in the results.\u00a0In practice, it means that based on the 2,100 people that the folks at Parks talked to, they are pretty darn sure that the actual population of people considering switching is no smaller than 6 percent of U.S. and Canadian homes with broadband, and no larger than 10 percent.<\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s survey, Parks talked to a few more people, but with the same confidence interval.\u00a0Which means Parks is pretty darn sure that the actual population of people looking to cut the cord last year was between 9 and 13 percent.<\/p>\n

Some of you have figured out where I\u2019m going by now.\u00a0 If this year, the number lies between 6 percent and 10 percent, and last year it lay between 9 percent and 13 percent, isn\u2019t is possible that, perhaps, there\u2019s been no actual change from year to year?\u00a0 It could, in fact, have been 8 percent, and 8 percent year-over-year.\u00a0 Or maybe it was 8 percent last year, and it\u2019s up to 9 percent this year.\u00a0 Or perhaps 13 percent were considering changing last year, and only 6 percent are mulling it over now.<\/p>\n

Any of the preceding interpretations would be correct, based upon the statistical validity of the survey.\u00a0 However, John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates, insisted to me that there is a \u201csignificant difference, but not a substantive difference\u201d between the two surveys.\u00a0 Or, in layman\u2019s terms, it\u2019s a lot closer to a single household feeling better about cable than a million.\u00a0Barrett added that in his opinion \u201cthe number hasn\u2019t changed that much itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings me to measurement, as in measured audience. The question in this survey was only posed to broadband households that also subscribe to cable or satellite TV.\u00a0 It ignored everyone who didn\u2019t subscribe \u2013- which was between 10 and 20 percent of the entire sample size.\u00a0 And media habits, like other addictions, are hard to change.\u00a0If you\u2019ve got cable now, you\u2019ll probably still have cable 10 years from now.<\/p>\n

This is especially relevant when it comes to demographic currently getting out of school and setting up their first households \u2013- the 18- to 24-year-olds, who haven’t had a chance to get addicted to multichannel TV services. And since if they don’t subscribe already they probably never will, they\u2019ll likely never even show up on a \u201ccutting the cord\u201d survey.\u00a0Indeed, Method VP John Gilles calls this cohort \u201cCable\u2019s Lost Generation<\/a>.\u201d \u201cFor at least the past five years, the young male demographic has virtually dropped off the map of television,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

The issue isn\u2019t existing customers dropping off; it\u2019s existing customers dying<\/em> off that should be of concern.\u00a0 That\u2019s because new customers just aren\u2019t taking their place.<\/p>\n

Which leads me to morbidity.\u00a0This is exactly what happened to magazines over the last 20 years. Whether it\u2019s Readers Digest, TV Guide or PC Magazine, each of these storied titles used to have viewers aged 16 to 60.\u00a0Then it was 26 to 60.\u00a0 And then 36 to 60.\u00a0 In other words, the audience aged to the point where it just wasn\u2019t economical to keep putting the product out.\u00a0 I should know, because I was there during the salad days of PC Publishing, and darn near turned the lights off at PC Magazine in 2007.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the cliff that the multichannel industry is staring at today.\u00a0Its best and brightest can wrap themselves in giddy surveys that show only (only!) 8 percent of their audience is considering leaving.\u00a0 But the broader problem is that their customers are dying.\u00a0 And no new ones are there to take their place.<\/p>\n

Jim Louderback is CEO of Revision3.<\/a> He was previously vice president of Ziff Davis Media and Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine and PCMag.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

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When you\u2019re drowning, you grasp at straws to try to stay afloat.\u00a0 Sometimes you actually convince yourself that you\u2019re standing on dry land.\u00a0 That seems to be the collective response of the traditional TV industry to a recent survey from Parks Associates. The market research firm company found that only 8 percent of U.S. households […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5755,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}