ESPN & NFL Saves Cable Subscribers

The Only Thing Keeping Cable TV Subscribers Paying

ESPN, NFL & NBA might have the most content leverage television business these days.  Every person I ask today says they are watching less network TV these days and if they do it's likely a PGA Golf, NFL football, NBA basketball, NHL hockey or MLB baseball game.  The second I ask is if you could dump your $200 per month cable TV bill, would you?  Some say yes if they are not sports fans and others who are sports fans say they can't give it up.  However, they say if the content was available over the internet like MLB.com they might consider it.   The cable companies know this and this is one of the reasons they are not rushing to put their programming online or make sports content "on-demand".  One other thing that are keeping cable customers tied is the upcoming promise of 3D TV Channels.  If you haven't watched the Hawaiian Open in 3D at Best Buy or Fry's on their demonstration LCD or Plasma TV's you will want one immediately. 

No matter how much content you consume on TV your cable bill is still this same each month.   So if you are a grandmother in Iowa who watches very little sports programming you are subsidizing this network because you have to each month.   U.S. consumers pay around $70 billion each year to cable and satellite companies to watch movies and TV shows on big screens in their living rooms.  This is probably about 75% too high and it's likely only a $25 billion dollar business if people truly paid what they used. 

I would like to see the NHL adopt similar a similar strategy to MLB and allow fans to watch games over the internet and on-demand via Google TV or Boxee.  I think it also makes a lot of sense for these cable companies to piece mail the content you watch but this will not happen until there is a groundswell adoption of Google TV, Xbox or Boxee.   The FCC is corrupt and just a bunch of industry puppets who work for the networks so they will never do anything.  The NAB will do everything in their power as well to sue anyone who distributes their content illegally as well.  Hopefully, a better World is coming where content is king and not programming.